


Six Years On

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Frottage, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Polyamory, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:05:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2709986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>All it takes is Harry standing in his doorway and Louis remembers, in technicolor, why he’s spent so long being angry and guilty.  Because the alternative – the bone-deep, missing-a-lung, constant ache of missing him – is unbearable.</i>
</p><p>Six years after One Direction breaks up, Harry wants to publish a tell-all book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic for a couple of months now, and I'm so excited that I'm finally posting it! The whole fic is written and in final editing stages, so I'll be posting a chapter a week from now until the end of December. Promise.
> 
> This is canon-compliant. As much as any future fic is, of course, but it definitely assumes canon up to and including December 2014. It is also end-game Louis/Liam/Harry, with a number of deviations along the way.
> 
> This takes place in Fall 2023, six years after One Direction broke up.

The manuscript arrives on a Tuesday morning in mid-August. It comes the old-fashioned way, wrapped in a Burberry shirt box, the embossed silver knight shining unmistakably under a brown and green plaid ribbon. The thick kind, with velvet ribbing and angled ends. 

It looks expensive, the kind of thing singers send Louis as a low-scale, slightly passive aggressive bribe in the hopes that he needs a new scarf _so badly_ that he’ll sign them to a record deal in gratitude. As if the interest accruing in Louis’s second bank account couldn’t buy ten Burberry scarfs before lunch, but Louis tries not to think like an asshole. Makes it a life goal, actually.

So, when his secretary brings the box into the office, her heels clicking insistently against the modern fake-marble floor, he nods for her to leave it on the corner of his desk. She frowns, purposefully knocking over a stack of papers – probably to prove to him how messy he is, as if he’s not highly aware of that, thank you – and uncovering an old Chipotle container that she picks up between two fingers, pinching the edge of her nose and scurrying out.

Louis does feel a little bad about that. He cups the speaker on his phone, tipping it away from his face and ignoring the fast, clipped words of his counterpart in the Tokyo office and the high tones of the translator, shouting, “Sorry,” after Juliana.

She comes back to the doorway, wiping her hands with a moist toilette, making sure to really dig the soap under her fingernails. “I need a raise.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Louis waves her off. She asks for a raise, like, once a week and, mostly, he relies on monthly raises to keep her around. He’s very aware how important she is to the smooth running of his life.

Louis focuses back on the call, more interested in practicing his Saturday morning elementary Japanese lessons than in actually signing the three-piece Taiwanese girl group. Round about the half-hour mark, though, when Louis’s exhausted his use of phrases like “good day” and “how are you?” Louis reaches for the box. 

He does, actually have an opera/gala/opening thing for Radio 1 later. It’s going to be boring as hell, but at least, if he wears a new scarf, the Mirror might stop posting ironic “Who Wore It Better” posts of him in the same suit at different events. Lottie’s taken to cutting them out and pasting them in a collage in his closet at home. It’s getting a little embarrassing.

When he opens the box, though, it’s not a scarf. Nestled in a bed of evergreen tissue paper is a manuscript, printed and bound in maroon leather with a black binding. He recognizes it, from the numerous publisher manuscripts he’s had to edit over the years; confirmed when he catches site of the digital version on a USB stick – Simon & Schuster in red lettering across the silver metal – sitting on top of an envelope. A little one, a quarter the size of a normal envelope. He’s seen them before, but only digging through his mom’s stock of Christmas wrappings when he’s left his shopping a little too late. 

He lifts the envelope out of the box and freezes. All it says is “Lou” on the outside, but Louis recognizes the handwriting. Louis will always recognize that handwriting, has it tattooed on his inner arm in case he ever dares to forget.

The message inside is simple. Just: _This has been six years in the making. Thirteen, really. I hope you like it. – H_. And, Jesus, Harry even rambles on shrunken greeting cards with minimal space. Louis’s almost forgotten that detail.

Which is a total lie. Louis hasn’t forgotten anything about Harry that annoys him. Has, in fact, spent the last few years cataloguing them, making lists in his head late at night, convincing himself that those things matter more than all the others. The way Harry preened in the spotlight; the way he’d talk slow and meandering, never with a destination in mind; the way he would write songs, all loose and self-conscious, with no idea of how good he really was; the way he’d keep everything in, pretend, always, always, that things were alright, when they all knew they weren’t. 

That last one, unsurprisingly, burned them all in the end.

Not that Louis doesn’t accept his role in all that, but-

“Good. I see you got it.”

Louis’s head snaps up, dropping the card back into the box and staring at Harry. He’s standing in Louis’s doorway, hands pushed halfway into the front pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunched and hair swept onto one shoulder, hat covering half his face. He looks rested, calm, at peace in a way Louis never remembers him looking, even with the deep, dark circles of jetlag painted under his eyes. He doesn’t look that different, still all angles and deep dimples and sharp green eyes, but Louis can’t read him. Not like he used to, at least. It’s disconcerting as hell.

“Harry,” Louis breathes, and it comes out a question, more bewildered and confused and off-kilter than he’s felt in years.

If Louis couldn’t read Harry’s expression before, though, he can definitely read the small, shy, corner-of-his-mouth smile that Harry gives him. “Hey, Lou.”

Louis doesn’t know what to say; can’t say anything, really, that doesn’t catch in his throat. In the doorway, Harry shuffles, rolling on to the sides of his feet and brushing his hair, needlessly, out of his eyes even though it’s tied into a loose ponytail under his hat.

He points behind him. “Well, I’ve gotta- But, I wanted to make sure. That you got the book.”

Then he’s gone. Swept away from Louis’s doorway, as if he had just come for a quick chat after six years. Six years, with little more than postcards from Ghana and Japan and LA, all signed with Harry’s simple, weighted, “-H,” and never saying much of anything. 

And all it took was Harry standing in his doorway, saying little more than a few words, and Louis remembers, in technicolor, why he’s spent so long being angry and guilty. 

Because the alternative – the bone-deep, missing-a-lung, constant ache of missing him – is unbearable.

***

“We probably should have told you,” Niall admits as he digs into his second order of fish-and-chips, looking contrite. Which is strange. Niall is rarely contrite; he tends to make up his mind and just go with it, second thoughts be damned. “It was Liam’s idea, but, Zayn and I, we kinda thought it was right.”

Louis shrugs. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say. Niall doesn’t need to know exactly how much of a life-tilting shock it was to see Harry standing in his office yesterday. He’s probably already figured it out, anyway. Thirteen years under each others’ feet leaves little of Louis’s emotional turmoil to Niall’s imagination.

“To be honest, though, I thought you already knew.” Niall looks thoughtful as he reaches over, stealing one of Louis’s untouched fries even though he has a whole order in front of him. “Or, well, guessed at least. When we found out about Gemma.”

And, well, yeah. Louis should have known. Would have, if he wasn’t still so immersed in his memory of Harry six years ago, rather than the Harry he knew for the seven years before that. Because that Harry - the one Louis knew and loved and breathed as comfortably as his own air - that Harry would absolutely have run home the minute he found out Gemma was pregnant and hell-bent on raising her child single-handedly. That Harry would drop everything, leave whatever country he was calling home at the moment, pack his bags and catch the first flight home to buy Gemma a house and a crib for every room in that house and to buy the whole of the UK out of animal print onesies.

That, though, isn’t a Harry Louis knows anymore. Hasn’t known for a very long time.

“Lou, you can’t-” Niall starts, his frown crossing his forehead in a deep line.

But, Louis doesn’t want to be chastised. He’s doing plenty of that himself, thank you. So, he digs through his chips, finding the soggiest one and coating it in ketchup and mayonnaise before chucking it at Niall’s shoulder.

Niall squawks, instantly dabbing his napkin in water and brushing it across his shoulder. “I was supposed to wear this on the show today. Susan will kill me.”

And isn’t that an interesting little tidbit? Louis’s heard Niall mention her before, mainly in terms of her work in wardrobe and makeup on the show, but never in that low, gentle, blushing way Niall gets when he’s starting to like someone. “Something to tell me there, Nialler?”

Niall drops his napkin on the table, giving up on it, as he bumps his shoulder into Louis’s and steals another chip. “Not yet. Stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not,” Louis protests, raising his eyebrows innocently. 

Niall snots. “Sure. ‘Cause Harry’s been your favorite subject the last few years.”

Louis cringes. He’s never wanted – well, that’s a lie, there was a time he very much wanted, but that was ages ago – to put the other boys in the middle of his feelings about Harry. “Sorry,” Louis says, pushing his basket towards Niall to show his sincerity.

“It’s fine. I mean, I get it.” Niall sighs. “Just, you should read the book, Lou.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“If only cause our edits are due by early November.”

Louis pauses. “Are there things I’m gonna want to have edited out?” That’s a stupid question. Harry wrote the book, the most exhibitionistic, truthful, and eccentric of them all. Of course there are parts Louis’s not gonna want included.

“You,” Niall says, sing-song, as he gets up from the table, wrapping the rest of his food in the wax paper and heading out the door, “will have to read it to find out.”

“Fuck off,” Louis argues, without a lot of heat, as he follows Niall out the door. He leaves the remnants of his own lunch on the table.

Niall glances down the block, where X-Factor bootcamp is being held. “You coming back to the studio?”

“Nah.” Louis squints into the sun. “Bootcamp is more exhausting for coaches than contestants. I’m gonna steer clear of Simon until next week.”

“Probably a good call.” Niall pulls Louis into a tight hug before skipping away. Halfway down the street, he turns, shouting back at Louis. “Read the book.”

Louis rolls his eyes and waves Niall away. 

***

“Li, you need to take a second look at this contract. Section thirteen looks fishy to me and,” Louis pauses halfway into Liam’s office, glancing over his iPad to see Harry sitting behind the desk. “Oh, ahh, where’s Liam?”

Harry’s smile doesn’t quite reach his dimples as he looks up from Liam’s computer. “Went to pick up Ellie.”

Louis frowns. “It’s not his day.”

Harry shrugs. “Just said he had to step out. Maybe a parent-teacher conference thing? If they do those for preschoolers. Which, well, school is getting harder these days, so-” Harry shrugs, again, and Louis can’t stop staring.

Harry is just so- Harry. Louis’s not sure how he’d forgotten that.

“Um, well, just tell him I stopped by? I’ve got some things he’s gotta sign.”

“Sure.” Harry nods, then half-opens his mouth, debating with himself about saying something else. Louis’s half-frozen in fear of whatever Harry might say and half-frozen by Harry’s lips, red and swollen and stretching farther across his mouth than they have any right to.

Harry doesn’t say anything, though, and Louis shakes himself out of it. He’s turning to leave when he hears footsteps behind him and small, soft fingers digging into the hair at the back of his neck and tugging. 

“Hey Jelly Bean,” Louis greets her, turning and pressing a kiss to Ellie’s rosy cheek. She giggles, poking her fingers into Louis’s cheek.

“Uncle Lou.” She giggles again and Liam settles her further on his hip. She frowns, turning her head to protest at him, when she catches sight of Harry and squeals, kicking her legs and squirming until Liam puts her down. “Uncle ‘arry, Uncle ‘arry.”

Louis ignores the jealousy niggling at his chest, leaning, instead, towards Liam as he watches Ellie run forward, raising her arms. Harry stands quickly, catching her and fake-staggering, his free hand going to his back as he wraps the other around her body, hugging her carefully to his chest. “Ugh, Ellie, you’re getting so big.”

“You saw me yes’erday,” she says, giggling when he brushes his nose against hers.

Even Liam’s palm, warm and steady and spread across Louis’s lower back, isn’t enough to stave off his jealousy at that. It’s been weeks – _weeks_ – since he’s spent any quality time with Ellie, and here’s Harry, holding her two days in a row, two good days, when he hasn’t been here through any of the bad. 

“You’re growing like a weed.”

She frowns, her five years not quite enough to understand that reference, but grasping on to the one part she does get. “I’m grown now,” she says, proudly, puffing out her chest.

“Are you now?” Harry raises an eyebrow. “Well, then, if you’re grown, I should just let you down, huh? Big girls don’t need to be carried.”

“No, no,” she shrieks, shaking her head, little braids whipping against Harry’s cheeks as she wraps her arms tightly around his neck. She always gives them whiplash, how she can go from good to bad humored in the space of a blink. She gets that from Liam, Louis always says. “P’ease.”

“Shh, shh.” Harry looks frantic, eyes big and shining green, as he cups his hand around the back of her head and presses his lips to her hair. “I won’t, ladybug, I won’t.”

“I donna want you to go away again,” she cries, and Louis can see how she’s shaking. Or, maybe that’s Harry, who’s murmuring soft words against her hair, wiping tears from her cheeks and caressing her neck, his eyes too dark and too wet. 

Louis’s chest aches. It’s strange how used to this feeling he was, years ago, the tight pinch he used to get every time Harry interacted with kids. The feeling feels foreign, now, six years on, and Louis almost feels like crying with them. Would, he’s sure, if he were Ellie and if Harry would look at him like he’s looking at her. Being the sole subject of Harry’s attention is infectious and dangerous and intoxicating, and it seems like a feeling he shouldn’t have ever gotten used to. 

In Harry’s arms, Ellie’s quieting, moving smoothly from her meltdown to chattering happily away about her day. Harry’s smiling, not quite dry yet, but playing along for both of them, and Liam’s hand is loosening on Louis’s back. Louis feels caught, between Liam and Harry and Ellie, and, for the first time in so, so long, he feels the burning desire to run, to get out of here as quickly as he can.

He takes a step back, forcing Liam to drop his hand and ignoring the little frown Liam throws him. “I’m, ahh- I’ve got a meeting,” Louis explains, and it’s not really a lie. He probably does have a meeting, he has so many of them it’s never a bad guess.

Liam’s face smoothes. “Right, with Sony and Goldie?”

Louis forces himself not to frown because, really?, that’s today? “Yeah, right.”

“Can you handle this one solo? Sophia has an appointment this afternoon and I was gonna take Ellie to the park.”

Louis nods, more because he can’t deny Ellie anything than because he can actually handle the meeting on his own. He should probably read over the briefing memo on the way to the conference room.

“Great, thanks, I owe ya.” Liam slaps him on the back. Louis almost stumbles, pushing away the desire to do something stupid – like, beg to come to the park, too, or pull Liam into a kiss or something - before his iPad pings at him and, right, the Sony meeting.

“No worries,” he offers, and then he’s backing out of the doorway, eyes trained on the carpet and definitely not on the way Liam grins and moves into the room, greeting Ellie and Harry in an embrace that looks an awful lot like family. 

***

Louis gets home later than normal. Always does, on days when Liam has to duck out early, leaving Louis to cover both their meetings and both their stacks of paperwork. Louis would complain, except he does it to Liam just as often, and at least Liam has Ellie as an excuse. Louis just tends to spend hours lounging around in Zayn’s university office or Niall’s X-Factor dressing room. So, like, not super legit excuses.

The front door clicks shut behind him and he’s immediately pulling at the hem of his shirt. He’s out of his semi-business-casual attire before he’s halfway to the kitchen, turning up the heat on the way. He still has meals delivered, calories pre-counted and meat pre-spiced, so all he has to do is dig out the one labeled “Tuesday – Supper” and stick it in the oven for the allotted time. It’s nice, easy, simple.

In the twenty minutes it takes for his meal to heat, Louis strips down to his undershirt and boxers and perches on a kitchen stool, flipping on the BBC. 

“And ex-pop-star Harry Styles was seen at the London Zoo this afternoon.”

Louis watches the screen carefully. Liam hates – hates, like, to the point of having a photo ban with all the major TV shows, magazines, and on-line news sources – the idea of Ellie being papped. The cameramen are good, though, carefully cropping Liam and Ellie out of each picture, so that it’s just Harry dangling his fingers through the gorilla cage and grinning widely at the yawning lions. 

“Styles, one-fifth of retired boy band One Direction, hasn’t been seen much the last few years. He’s reportedly been travelling internationally. He was in LA last time I heard, right, May?”

May nods her blond, perfectly manicured head. “And before that Ghana, I think? And perhaps Japan.”

“Wonder what’s brought him home after all this time?”

May shrugs, staring straight at the camera, her blue eyes definitely enhanced by contacts. “I don’t know, Sarah, but, knowing Styles, we can only hope it’s something exciting.”

“Second that. Now, onto the weather. Kevin?”

Louis mutes the TV, disgusted with himself for even watching the bit. Air-headed entertainment shows still fill him with the dread of cropped photos and out-of-context quotes. 

From a business angle, though, he supposes it’s good to know that Harry’s name still carries some weight in the UK market. It’ll make promo for the book a little easier, when the time comes.

Speaking of- Louis gathers his supper and his iPad, crawling into bed with both and eating with one hand as he pulls up Harry’s book with the other. Not that he really wants to read it. Honestly, if he had his way, he’d just hunker down and wait out Harry’s prodigal return. Kinda like he waited out whatever shit he was feeling for the seven years he lived in Harry’s pocket, ignoring it until, inevitably, Harry was gone and Louis could forget that he ever felt anything besides a low-level annoyance.

It doesn’t seem, though, like Harry’s going anywhere this time. He seems hell-bent on making a life for himself here, in London, with them – Gemma and the boys and, soon, his nephew - in a way he hasn’t since- well, since Louis’s ever known him.

Besides, Niall’s sent him five texts a day over the past week, all variations on _read the book !!!_ and _i can read it 2 u if u dont remember how_ and _reading is gooooood for growing boyz !!_. Louis figures it’s worth almost anything, at this point, to save his texting bill.

It takes less than half a chapter for Louis to rethink his priorities.

Louis’ not sure why he expected otherwise, but everything – literally, everything – is in the book.

It would be sordid, if it wasn’t told in Harry’s slow, rambling style. The stories meander, so much so that Louis, who lived through them, can’t tell where each one begins and ends. It’s like reading one of those infinite-staircase Escher drawings, stories leading into stories leading into stories.

It does help, though, to mix the sordid with the sad bits, all of it running through with the good parts. The parts that were so, so good that they make Louis’s chest ache, even now. 

Like Ghana, and the rest of their charity work, particularly Louis’s time with Eden Dora and Bluebell Wood and all the work he’s done over the years for children and animal organizations. 

Like the weddings; Zayn’s, Jay’s and Anne’s, Gemma’s, even if the majority of those were too short-lived. 

And the births, Simon’s first child, Doris and Ernest. Ellie’s, too, although that one also brings tears to his eyes as Harry describes the absolute joy of holding Ellie for the first time, loving her instantly and desperately and unconditionally, even though he knew he only had a few short hours before catching a return flight to Ghana. The first and last time Louis saw him over the last six years.

Louis smiles as he reads about the day they were put together on The X-Factor – almost, actually, thirteen years ago to the day – and laughs at days spent skinny-dipping in Robin’s pool, having a laugh when they were meant to be rehearsing. He remembers how it feels, like it was yesterday, to be backstage at Wembley or the O2 or MSG, or the fucking Rose Bowl, where near-ninety thousand fans celebrated Niall’s 21st birthday with them.

Not that all their birthdays were such joyous occasions. There was Liam’s 23rd, during the first of his and Sophia’s bad spots, when he broke down in the middle of Little Things and Harry had picked up his parts without a word. Or Harry’s 22nd, the cold, February morning when he had called Louis in tears to tell him about Anne and Robin’s divorce. The first of many, painful and frustrating and told in excruciating detail, alongside Zayn and Perrie’s break-up, Gemma’s disappointment, and Liam’s, even if Harry wasn’t quite around for the latter. 

Harry’s guilt over that is in there, too. In fact, Harry spends a lot of column space regretting things where Liam is concerned. Almost as much as he spends on Louis.

Harry feels so much. Always has. And it comes through his pen in the same way it does when he speaks and widens his eyes and bites at the inside of his finger. A little awkward, a little naïve, but unyieldingly sincere. 

Louis can barely get through the parts about Lottie’s rocky coming out. Made all the harder to Louis, to remember how distant he had been throughout. Not unsupportive – Louis will never not support his sisters – but not supportive in the way he should have been. Louis hadn’t realized, either, how hard it had been on Harry, to see Lottie coming out while Harry was trying, so hard, to stay closeted, even from himself. 

And that’s only the beginning. If he had thought about it, Louis would have assumed that the hardest parts to read would be the chapters on the band’s break-up. The fights, the squabbles, the way they had fallen into the age-old trap of ego and ambition, all under the banner of “musical differences.” Painful and belligerent as they shattered into the five separate and individual people they hadn’t been since they were teenagers. 

Reading it, though, from Harry’s perspective, it sounds a lot softer than Louis remembers. He writes about it as an inevitability. A little unpleasant, sure, but definitely mutual and without personal fault. All these years, Louis has been harboring so much anger at Harry, and, secretly, so much guilt over how it all went down. He’s always figured that, somehow, he had been the one to push Harry away, to push him just that inch too far and caused him to fuck off to Ghana for two whole years with nothing more than a postcard here and there. 

Louis has never once thought that it was Harry’s decision to leave. That it was, possibly, something that Harry needed to do, for himself. A decision made separate from Louis, separate from the band. 

Louis can’t help but wonder how the rest of the lads think back upon their break-up. He knew how they felt then, of course he did; there were months when they talked about little else. It’s been years, though, since anyone’s said a word about it and, suddenly, Louis wonders if he is the only one who hasn’t started to heal.

In the end, though, those parts are interesting and thought provoking, but they aren’t the hardest parts to read. The hardest parts actually have very little to do with One Direction and so much more to do with Harry and the deep, fundamental identity crisis he was going through. They never forgot, not really, that Harry was the youngest, that Harry entered the X-Factor house at sixteen and grew up on the road, with them and Paul and Simon as brothers and parents and teachers all-in-one. But, Harry handled it so well – the glitz and the glamour and the tabloids and the cameras continuously flashing in their faces; “born pop star,” Louis used to say, over and over again, to anyone who would listen, as if it was Harry’s greatest characteristic – and they sort of forgot that Harry was sixteen when he built a media persona that he’d have to live with for the next seven years. 

It became a mask Harry wore. Louis knew that, of course he knew that. He just never knew it was a mask Harry felt he had to wear around them, too.

And that hurts, more than anything else. Much more than any of the deeply personal pieces of Louis’s life that Harry’s shared, up to and including that shared hand job in the bathroom at the X-Factor house and the almost-kiss at that bar in Wellington. The idea that Harry hid himself, not just from the media and the fans, but from them, from his family, from Anne and Robin and Louis and Liam, from everyone but, apparently, Gemma and Grimmy and Jeff Azoff, of all people- Well, that hurts. Like poking at an open wound that hasn’t managed to scab over in the six years Harry’s been gone.

Despite himself, he tears up as he reads about the isolation Harry felt in the months after the Where We Are tour. The isolation that only grew over the next two albums, as Harry struggled with women and the new cracks in his voice, hiding in LA from Modest! and Syco, from the boys and, especially, from Louis. It tugs at Louis, like it did then, except a thousand times worse, because everything Louis’s ever read about distance and perspective is utter bullshit. Back then, he had been distracted. He had Eleanor and song writing and Lottie trying to become a Hollywood make-up artist and explore her sexuality at the same time. He’s not distracted anymore, and all perspective does is make everything clearer, let the pain dig deeper. 

Thank god Harry intersperses these paragraphs of self-reflexivity with long sections of good memories, though. Louis’s reading the chapter about their first trip to Japan, when Niall had poured his miso soup over his rice and had wandered around wearing one of those stupid surgical masks, when he hears the front door click open and someone take the stairs two at a time.

Liam.

No one else has that kind of energy at – Louis checks the time at the top of his iPad – half-past eleven.

“Still reading it, then?” Liam asks, light and airy. He’s either, somehow, unbelievably, remained oblivious to Louis’s Harry-specific issues over the years, or he’s deciding to ignore them, for some equally unbelievable reason. And not only ignore them, but, actively pretend that they don’t exist, as he leans in the doorway, arms and ankles crossed, looking for all the world like this is an ordinary day.

"Yes, I am, so bugger off, yeah?"

"You'd think," Liam says, and Louis can hear him start to undress, without looking up, "that you were hearing these stories for the first time. Like you didn't actually, oh, I don't know, live through them."

"Sod off." Louis throws a pillow, not bothering to see if it hits his target. He's still pretty shit at hand-eye coordination, just ask Niall about his golf game. Which has not, despite all his attempts, improved since his retirement, or whatever it is they’re calling his move from worldwide pop sensation to successful businessman. “I’m getting to a good bit.” 

The mattress dips next to him, but Louis still doesn’t look up. Harry’s followed their first trip to Japan with their third, when Harry was accosted by a group of girls who dragged him bodily, and much to Paul's displeasure, into an underground Beatles bar. Turns out the girls were members of a Brit-rock cult-type thing, and Harry had loved them, agreeing, instantly, to sing Beatles karaoke all night. Louis remembers it like it was yesterday. Remembers Niall and Zayn singing a Help! duet, remembers the way Harry pulled Liam on stage for a reggae version of Penny Lane that they really should have recorded, remembers Paul forcing the tape out of the proprietor’s hands before they finally headed back to the hotel when the sun was rising. 

Louis laughs out loud, his memories complementing Harry's telling of it perfectly.

Liam plucks the iPad out of Louis’s hands, turning it off with a loud "click" and very deliberately putting it on the bedside table that Louis has started, recently, thinking of as Liam’s.

"I was reading that."

Liam dips his hand under the quilt and into Louis’s boxers, his fingers wrapping around Louis’s soft dick. Despite himself, he twitches in Liam's hand, even as he crosses his arms, glaring over the rim of his glasses.

"And," Louis adds, "I was enjoying it."

"It'll still be there in the morning," Liam argues. "And I will not."

"Ahh, I see what's happening here. Just popped by for a quickie and you expected me to, what? Just be lying here, waiting for you to grace me with your presence?"

"You know?" Liam says, thoughtfully, still working Louis’s dick under the covers. "That would be nice. You should try it next time.”

“Keep saying shite like that and see if there’s a next time."

"I’ll take my chances." Liam leans up on his elbow, catching Louis’s pouting bottom lip between his teeth and, well, Louis might be pushing 32 but he's not dead. And Liam's still fit, still jogs every morning and watches what he eats. Not that it would matter to Louis, who still sees every iteration of Liam in the lines of his face, from 16 to 30. Liam will still be each and every one of those Liams, Louis thinks, when they're 70 years old and Liam's face is wrinkled beyond recognition.

Louis kisses back, practiced and sure, even if they've only been doing this for a few months and have yet to define it. Not that Louis isn’t okay with that. Lack of boundaries and definitions is good. Mostly.

"Stop thinking," Liam growls. "I'm clearly not doing this right."

"No, you're brilliant, Li, always." He lifts his hand, accidentally sincere, wrapping it around Liam's neck and caressing the skin behind his ear, just like Louis knows he likes it. 

He never wants to – never could - be the person who cuts Liam's confidence even more than Sophia had.

So, Louis pushes thoughts of Harry's book to the back of his mind and dedicates himself to the task at hand. Namely, pulling Liam on top of him, spreading his knees, and aligning their dicks. 

It doesn't take long. Neither of them is that young anymore and it's been a bit over a week since they've done this. So, when Louis gets his fist wrapped around them both, all it takes is a few minutes of stroking and that particular flick of his wrist at the base and Liam's coming. Louis kisses him through it, before bracing Liam still with hands on both his hips, so Louis can finish with hard, measured thrusts into the hollow of Liam's hipbone.

"Jesus, Lou, that was fantastic. I really needed that."

"Mmm." Louis stretches out on his back, head resting on his bent elbow, free arm brushing against Liam's as he lies beside him, catching his breath. "Me too. We should do that more often."

"I'll check my calendar."

"'Kay." Louis lays there for another few minutes until he feels his heart beat return to normal. Then he leans over Liam, kissing him long and gentle, as he reaches past him to pluck his iPad from the bedside table.

Liam rolls his eyes. "You know how it ends so, like, it's not a rush to the finish or anything."

Louis hums noncommittally as he pulls up the book because, well, that's exactly the problem, isn't it? He thinks he knows how it's going to end, but, well, it seems like Louis has gotten a lot of things wrong these last six years.

Next to him, Liam sighs heavily and the mattress dips again as he gets up. Louis does look, then, enjoying the view as Liam bends to retrieve his clothes and slip into them.

"I'm not kicking you out."

Liam shrugs. "I have to take Ellie to school in the morning, before work. I have the alarm set for half-five."

"In that case," Louis scrunches his nose, "I am kicking you out."

"I thought as much." Liam puts his knee on the bed, leaning over to give Louis a quick, chaste kiss before he's gone, taking the stairs two at a time even on the way down.

Louis shakes his head, turning back to the book.

***

He doesn’t actually finish it, despite his best intentions. He gets about halfway through, around about the chapter when Harry meets – and, Louis still isn’t quite sure and doesn’t think Harry is either, possibly falls in love with – Jeff, when it all gets to be too much. He’s not sure if it’s the slow, too-detailed style of Harry’s writing or the colored, murky nature of his own memories, or maybe the combination of the two, but it feels like a Molotov cocktail in Louis’s bones. 

Whatever the reason, he puts it down after that first night and doesn’t pick it up again.

He does feel incredibly guilty about it, gnawing at him every time he uses his iBooks app, or knocks over the Burberry box that’s still sitting on the edge of his desk, or whenever he sees Harry. Which is difficult, because Harry is suddenly everywhere Louis turns. He’s developed an – annoying and unprecedented – habit of sneaking in, under the radar, in a way that surprises Louis again and again as he trips over Harry in his own doorway or Liam’s office or around the corner of an unsuspecting hallway.

Harry never used to sneak anywhere. He has clown feet and rolled ankles and the balance of a giraffe, coupled with charisma enough to light up a room. Louis used to think that Harry owned every place he went; was, in fact, one of the things that grated on him most, the idea that the band wasn’t special, that Harry made everyone feel like they were the center of his universe until he spread his affections thin enough as to be meaningless. 

Which, Louis supposes in his more charitable moments, is exactly why Harry left. Not that Louis has all that many charitable moments. 

Anyway, he blames the Japanese monks for the whole sneaking around thing. Next time he’s in Osaka on business, he’ll take a train to Mt. Kōya and give them a piece of his mind. And, maybe, teach them how to trip over a step every once in a while.

Louis’s meant to be checking in on the Freeway Kicks – their newest signee from Columbia – when he catches Harry practicing in the smaller of the second floor studios. Without having signed it out or made an appointment or mentioning that he’s even still making music. That last one Louis can’t really blame on the monks. 

He pauses to watch as Harry beats his long fingers against a pair of traditional African drums, singing low and gravely to a rhythm unlike anything Louis’s ever heard before. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Harry make music. He still closes his eyes on high notes, still looks like he’s going to trip over his own feet even though he’s sitting, still looks somehow both loose and nervous, sitting in this small room, alone, just him and the music and his own insecurities. He’s still absolutely stunning.

As Harry finishes the song and is absently tapping out a different beat on the drums, Louis raps his knuckles against the glass door. Harry’s head snaps up, his smile small and shy when he catches Louis, and Louis doesn’t wait to be motioned in before he pushes the door open.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be here today?” Louis doesn’t mean it to be accusatory, or a question, but Harry’s smile slips, just a little bit at the corners, and, right, he and Harry aren’t exactly on a calendar sharing level of friendship these days.

“I, um- Liam didn’t tell you?” Harry slides the drums into his lap, leaning his elbows on them and hunching in on himself as he peers up at Louis.

“Ahh.” Louis wracks his brain, but he’d remember any conversation about Harry. Has them all catalogued and color-coded and filed away by both topic and chronology. “Nope.”

“Oh. Well.” Harry looks down, brushing his hair out of his eyes, his curls wild and unruly and beautifully thick between his fingers. “I’m producing an album. Solo, kind of. More duets, really, if I can get people to, like, agree that it’s worth doing. And, um, I’m gonna release it with you.”

“With One Mode?” Louis asks, stupidly, because, what? That’s definitely something he should have known about. He’s the co-CEO of this damn company.

“Yeah.” Harry glances up again, and Louis can see his flush spread down his neck and across his swallow tattoos, where his shirt is unbuttoned. “I, um, signed the paperwork with Liam, but, I’d assumed he’d talked with you about it?”

“Nope,” Louis repeats, popping the ‘p.’ 

Harry flinches. “I’m sorry, Lou. I didn’t mean to go behind your back, honest.”

Harry looks so sincere, so worried, like, maybe, he’s ruined something he doesn’t even understand, and Louis is still so endeared by his dimples and his curls and his green, watery eyes, that he shakes his head. “Don’t- um, it’s not a problem. I’m sure Liam was just waiting for the right time to tell me.”

That doesn’t really help, and this time he flinches right along with Harry.

“Not that there has to be a right time, really,” Louis tries, but it’s already out there and Harry’s biting his lower lip and Louis wonders when he’s going to stop being an asshole where Harry’s concerned. Probably no time soon, if his track record is anything to go by.

Harry takes a deep, valiant, steadying breathe – something else he never used to be able to do – and worries away at his lip as he changes the subject. “I- um, do you, maybe, wanna hear one of the songs? It might make you feel better. About signing me without knowing you were signing me?”

“Harry-” Louis starts, but he doesn’t know how to finish it. Probably with something like _there would never be any doubt_ or _I know you’ll be brilliant_ or _I trust Liam_. But, instead, he hooks his ankle around a chair and pulls it towards him, straddling it backwards. “Sure, yeah, play me something.”

Harry smiles to himself, putting the drums aside and picking up a four-string guitar that he settles across his knees. Louis’s pretty sure it’s traditionally Japanese – he’s definitely seen it before at Kabuki shows on his trips to Tokyo. It has a beautiful, thin tone, somewhat harp-like and light, as Harry’s fingers dance across it.

“It’s meant to have more parts,” Harry warns, shuffling his feet, nervous and vulnerable. “But, um, it’s just you and me here and unless you can play those-?” He nods towards the drums and Louis shakes his head. “Well, then, it’s just me.”

“Just you is just fine,” Louis says, before he can stop himself, and Louis can see Harry’s smile through the curtain of his hair.

And then Harry starts to sing. His voice is low, the song written perfectly for his register, with a strong, catchy beat. It’s not exactly a perfect radio pop song – a little slow and heavily influenced by Harry’s time in Mt. Kōya – but it’s not far off, either. It’s different, strange, a little asymmetrical, and Louis loves it.

Harry finishes the third verse, cutting off a note that Louis’s pretty sure will he held out on the record, and glances up. “It’ll be a duet, eventually, which is why the chorus is so thin, but, if you can imagine it-”

“It’s good, Harry, really.” It’s very good, actually.

“Yeah?”

Louis chuckles. “Really.”

There’s another knock on the door, and Louis looks up to see Juliana glaring at him, the toe of her shoe trying to click against the muffled soundproof carpet. “You’re late, by,” she glances at her iWatch, “twenty minutes.”

Louis scoffs at her. “Only twenty minutes? I’ve got ages yet.”

“Louis.” Her voice is silky, in that tone she gets when she’s seconds away from strangling him. Louis’s pretty sure she learned that from his mother, and makes a mental note to stop letting his mother hang around the office. She has a bad habit of adopting apprentices, and Louis would really rather she find them elsewhere. Like, among Liam’s staff.

“Right, I’m coming,” he says out loud, though, because Louis’s mother is fucking scary.

Juliana stands there, holding the door open for him, impatience set into every line of her arm.

“I said I’m coming.”

“Mmm hmm,” she agrees, but doesn’t move.

Louis sighs, but when he glances up, Harry’s laughing, burying it in the curve of his wrist, and Louis can’t help laughing, too. He stands, pressing his hand to Harry’s shoulder, his fingers brushing against Harry’s curls and his thumb catching against the skin of Harry’s neck.

Harry’s laughter skips a bit and he looks up, his head tipping back almost far enough to brush against Louis’s stomach. “Thanks. For listening.”

Louis rubs his thumb against the curve of Harry’s neck. “Figured I should, considering you’re a client and all.”

“Right.”

Harry pulls away, putting inches and oceans between them, turning back to his drums with shaking fingers and his lip back between his teeth.

It seems impossible to Louis that Harry can still be uncertain about his musical talent, even though Louis, himself, is still incredibly self-conscious about how thin his voice is and how he tends to pull high notes. Harry, though, Harry’s different. Always has been.

“The song was really great,” Louis tries to offer, because he doesn’t like that this moment is ending like this. “I’ll try and think of some people, for the duet.”

“Thanks.” Harry sounds pleased, but still isn’t looking up, and Louis’s about to storm out of the room when he realizes, with a start, that as uncertain as Harry is about his music, he’s just as uncertain about Louis. About where they stand, as friends and colleagues and ex-band members.

And Louis just called him a client. Fuck. Harry isn’t just a client, could never be just a client. Louis feels an immediate, acute need to impress that upon him.

“I’m glad you’re back, Haz,” Louis murmurs, bending down to press a brief, chaste kiss to the top of Harry’s head. He hopes it’s enough, but he doesn’t turn back around to make sure.

***

“I don’t want a party,” Harry says for the fourth – fifth? Louis lost count a while ago – time as they near the doors to Funky Buddha. His eyes narrow as the neon sign comes into view. “This was Liam’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“Gemma’s, actually,” Zayn says, from Harry’s other side. “The location might have been Liam’s, though.”

Harry stops right outside, glancing at himself in the door windows and adjusting his collar in the lamplight. His shirt is open almost to his waist, showcasing the phoenix tattoo on his sternum and Louis traces the orange and red feathers in his mind until Zayn reaches over to pinch him.

“Ow, fuck.” Louis rubs his shoulder. “That was uncalled for.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. Fuck him, anyway, for knowing Louis so well.

Harry takes in a deep breath and straightens his shoulders, oblivious to both of them. “There’s gonna be a lot of people in there, yeah?”

Zayn nods, “ah huh,” at the same time as Louis claps Harry on the shoulder. “Yep. And remember to be surprised, yeah? Gemma will have my balls if she figures out I told you.”

Harry laughs absently, his fingers still twitching aimlessly against the edges of his shirt. 

“They all love you,” Zayn says, his voice low and much more sympathetic. “This ‘s gonna be good.”

“Right, yeah.” Harry tugs at his collar one more time, before stuffing his hands in his front pockets. “Right,” he repeats, stealing his face until it screams ‘pleasantly surprised’ and pushes through the doors.

It’s not really much of a surprise homecoming party. Louis takes responsibility for actually having told Harry ahead of time, but not for the disorganized fluster of activity when they enter, with the lights still up and less than half of Harry’s guests hiding. Harry, though, plays along admirably, holding his hand to his chest and jumping a foot in the air, grinning widely as he envelopes Gemma in a hug that appears, even to Louis, entirely grateful and genuine.

Just goes to show, really, that Harry comes across his charm honestly. No one would fault him – well, maybe Gemma would, but she’d get over it – for holding back, shying away from all the people and the noise and the press of bodies. He has just spent two years in a remote village in Ghana, followed by two years in a monastery deep in the mountains of Mount Kōya, tapped off with another couple tucked away in the LA foothills. Louis’s not sure how Harry can even stand the Tube at this point, none-the-less a room full of people dying for physical demonstrations of his affections.

Harry doesn’t hold back, though. Just steps into the first group of distant relatives and follows that up with a circle of record executives, smiling and shaking hands and all the time swirling his gin and tonic without actually resorting to drinking much of it. And if his shoulders look a little tense and he stands on his ankles every so often and he seeks out the boys every few minutes, Louis can’t fault him. It’s fun, anyway, to distract him with blowjob gestures every time he looks Louis’s way, or for Niall to flash him a thumbs-up or Liam to blink his eyelashes in something approximating suggestive.

“Don’t do that again,” Zayn tells him, the second time he lowers his eyelids and blinks rapidly.

“What?” Liam asks, his eyes wide and brown.

“I think Harry’s aunt is about to call the cops on you.”

Liam frowns, pushing himself against Zayn and batting his lashes in exaggeration. “For being too sexy?”

Louis laughs, folding in on himself, and laughing so loud that he feels it in his knees. Laughs as Zayn pats Liam’s back consolingly, saying something along the lines of, “looks a bit more like you’re on coke, mate,” and laughs as Liam scoffs in return.

It all feels so . . . normal. Louis finds himself forgetting who he is, who he’s grown up to be, as the evening progresses. Not, like, that he’s a big shot record executive or that he’s fooling around with Liam or any of the other important things, but, like, he forgets that he is all those things but not _also_ the boy he was when he was eighteen. Young and naïve and hopeful and so desperately, desperately in love with each and every one of his boys.

It doesn’t help, Louis thinks, that the entire Styles family has put in an appearance. Anne, Gemma, Des, even Robin comes down, still as much Harry’s adopted father as he was before the divorce. Louis’s glad about that, because Robin has a special place in Louis’s heart, too, and he’s missed him. When Louis closes his eyes, he can see it like it was yesterday: arriving at Robin’s cabin, Robin waiting at the front door with a pan of meatloaf, the master keys, instructions for pool aftercare, and a directive to work hard but have a bit of a laugh, too.

“Tommo,” Robin smiles, pulling Louis into a one-armed hug. Louis goes, willingly. Seeing him, being hugged by him, is like coming home in a way Louis’s been missing for years. It makes him feel like that little boy, eighteen and wide-eyed and accepted, fully and unconditionally, for the first time in his life.

Louis hugs back, until Gemma bounds up to ruffle his hair, pulling him out of Robin’s arms and under her armpit. She’s in stilettos and a short silver dress that barely falls to her knees, stretched and swollen over her belly. 

“Oh, it’s the older Styles,” he deadpans, elbowing her in the ribs hard enough to sting but not hard enough to hurt the baby, and she lets him go just far enough to smack a kiss on his cheek.

“That’s the best Styles to you.”

“Nah.” Louis shakes his head. “You lost that title already.” He nods at her belly, his hand hovering over it without touching.

Gemma pouts. “He’s not even born yet.” 

Louis shrugs. “Now how it works.”

She smiles, her whole demeanor softening. “I see how it is.” She pulls out her phone anyway, flipping to her photostream and tilting it towards Louis, as if Harry hasn’t shown Louis a hundred different angles of Gemma’s ultrasounds already. As if Harry doesn’t show them to anyone who makes the mistake of sitting near him long enough for him to get his phone out of his pocket.

Louis nods along, though, because he loves babies, and this one, this one’s a Styles, so he loves it especially. “He’s beautiful.”

She tips the phone back towards her. “Well, no, he’s not really. He’s still kind of a peanut, but, thanks for lying.”

Louis laughs. He doesn’t think it’s possible to miss someone as much as he’s missed Harry, but Gemma’s a close second.

“How’re my favorite people in the world?” There is no hint of irony in Harry’s voice as he comes up behind Gemma, his hand splayed across her stomach as he rests his chin on her shoulder. He’s looking directly at Louis as he talks and Louis dares to hope that he’s including Louis in that statement.

Gemma and Harry, baby Oliver and Louis, and maybe Liam and Ellie, if Louis gets his way. A family. A right, proper family.

It’s a stupid, fleeting thought, and Louis buries it immediately.

Gemma rests her hand on Harry’s, pressing it closer to her belly. “We’re good. Wishing we could have champagne, but-”

“Ahh, speaking of.” Harry presses a kiss to her shoulder before he pulls away, reaching towards the nearest tray for two flutes. He hands one to Louis, clinking their glasses together, and- Hope is so dangerous. “I’m gonna need more if I’m gonna get through this homecoming speech.”

“You’re gonna do fine. Always do.” Gemma says, absently, staring at the champagne flute longingly.

Louis snorts and Harry turns to glare at him which, oops. He opens his mouth to apologize- but, no. Fuck that. Harry’s speeches are terrible, never anything more than, “make some noise” and “you smell wonderful” and some other mumblings that usually come across more in hand gestures than actual words. 

Louis shrugs. “Sorry, mate, but, you’re really not very good.”

Harry takes a moment to look offended, before he bites at the edge of his index finger. “Think Liam’ll do it for me?”

“Probably. If you ask nicely. And offer to babysit a couple times a week.” Louis shrugs. He doesn’t mean, exactly, to be pimping Harry out so that Louis can get laid, but, well, if the opportunity arises, it’s a cross Louis’s dick is willing to bare. 

“Yeah.” Harry’s mouth is distracted, his dimples hidden behind a frown as he runs his fingers through his hair, futzing with his silk headscarf. It’s covered in orange and white koi fish, the colors bringing out the green in Harry’s eyes. “I’m gonna go find him, see what he wants in trade.”

Before he realizes he’s doing it, Louis’s fingers are wrapping around Harry’s wrist, pulling him back, and he bumps against Louis’s side, tripping over his own feet and falling into Louis rather than tip into Gemma and her precariously-balanced stomach. “Liam can’t actually do your speech, H.”

“But-”

Gemma laughs, shaking her head. “You two are both idiots,” she says, as if it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.

Harry hasn’t moved from Louis’s side, knees and elbows pressed together, wrist warm and trembling slightly under Louis’s fingers. Unintentionally, Louis seeks out Harry’s pulse, tapping out the quick beat of Harry’s heart on his wrist.

“So, um, I’m gonna go find mom or Niall or someone else who will recognize that I’m here.”

In the back of his mind, Louis can hear Gemma’s heels clicking away, but he doesn’t really care. Because he hasn’t touched Harry in six years, except for that one time in the studio, when Louis had been too nervous to take full advantage of it. He’s not making the same mistake this time, though, as he takes in every moment, memorizes the way Harry smells and feels and breaths, fitting the new memory alongside the old ones, twisting and adapting and realigning the image of a younger Harry he keeps tucked away in his head. 

This Harry isn’t so different, really. He feels the same, tall and gangly and safe, pressed against Louis. And when the lights are down and Louis’s tipsy enough to blur the distance between them a little, he can almost imagine that this is just another black-tie party. Like the ones they always had before shows and album debuts and perfume releases and singles and books and movie premiers and-

“Hey.” Louis jumps as Liam wraps his hands around each of their necks. Liam’s smiling at him, small and private and almost proud and Louis’s stomach aches. “It’s nice to see you two in the same space again.”

Louis comes back to himself, the few inches between him and Harry filling with six years of resentment and guilt and confusion as if Liam’s teasing breaks a damn in Louis’s mind. Louis’s skin is clammy and he shivers, leaning his shoulder into Liam’s, back arching into the thumb Liam’s rubbing in slow circles over the base of his spine, desperate for Liam to fill the cold, aching, regretful space.

Liam’s hand tightens, but Harry doesn’t seem to notice, or, at least, doesn’t react. He just blinks and turns his best, trouble-is-coming smile on Liam. “Lou was just trying to pimp you out.” Liam raises an eyebrow, and Harry flushes. “To give my speech.”

“Oh.” Liam’s face falls, and Louis honestly can’t tell if his disappointment is in jest. “No way am I doing that.”

“Li-”

Liam pulls away to hold up a finger, wagging it in front of Harry. “No, don’t even look at me like that, Styles. This is your party.” Harry deflates, sagging against the counter and finishing off his champagne as Liam chuckles. “Besides, I always hated giving speeches, was quite happy to give them up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Harry sighs. “Don’t know why on earth I’m doing this again.” _This_ meaning music, but also promo and marketing and photo shoots and pap shots and Louis can’t really imagine agreeing to all that again, no matter how much he misses parts of it. Like an itch deep down in his bones that he can’t reach, even with one of those long-handled back-scratchers.

There’s so much more there, in the crinkles and folds of Harry’s voice, and Liam pulls him into a one-armed hug. “Because you’re brilliant at it, Hazza. The best of us.” Louis’s not sure which part, exactly, Liam means, but he figures he can’t argue with any of it.


	2. Chapter 2

“Does it feel strange?” Harry asks from where he’s sprawled in Niall’s X-Factor chair, legs spread under the desk and long fingers cupped over the big red button. “Being on this side of things?”

“Yeah,” Niall admits, hitching his hip to sit on the desk next to Harry’s hands. Louis hangs back, a few feet from the judges’ table. He’s always worried that if Simon catches him at it, he’ll snap pictures and somehow rope Louis into the show just like he did Niall. “‘S weird every time I sit here. Don’t think that’ll ever change.”

“Would be weirder if it wasn’t weird.” Harry runs his hands along the desk. It’s made out of cheap, artificial mahogany, and Harry frowns, rubbing his fingers together to get the feel off of them. “Let’s play a game.”

The part of Louis who is Harry’s producer knows that they’re meant to be rehearsing. The lead single from Harry’s album is set to debut on the first live show at the beginning of October, and they only have a few days left to rehearse. It’s a duet with Niall and it’s brilliant, it really is, but it also needs some work. Mainly because Harry and Niall haven’t sung it together more than a few times yet, and if Louis’s learned anything from Liam, it’s that practice actually does make perfect, clichéd phrase and Daddy Direction nicknames be damned.

“Sure,” he agrees anyway, because it’s awkward to be both producer and mate, and Louis has never been great at balancing the two. Liam has a meeting with Warner Brothers that he couldn’t get out of, though, so Louis’s here, trying to be the responsible one and corral Harry and Niall into practicing when Louis, himself, would much rather be joking around. He should probably call Liam for a serious pep talk or something.

“Come over here.” Harry motions towards the open chair next to him and, before Louis can protest, drops his voice in a rough approximation of the X-Factor announcer. “In the role of Cheryl Cole we have- drumroll please.” Niall beats his hands against the desk, and Harry continues, “Louis Tom-lin-son.”

Louis shakes his head. “No, no way am I sitting there.”

“Oh, come on.” Harry grins, his dimples showing. “You have nothing to worry about. Niall was always Simon’s favorite and he’s already been hooked.”

Niall shrugs, as if to say _that’s true_ , as if they’re still competing for ‘Uncle Simon’s’ attention. Smiling stupid, cheeky smiles and pulling pranks and generally showing their appreciation by being little shits. And not that Louis doesn’t still enjoy a Simon-targeted prank or two, but they’ve all settled now, as much in their roles with Simon as with each other. 

With a deep sigh, Louis takes his fate into his own hands and falls into the seat next to Harry’s. “Who are you then? Louis Walsh?”

Harry thinks for a long moment, then sweeps his hair into a bun and hunches his shoulders. “I think I can pull it off.” 

Louis raises an eyebrow, but Harry actually does a pretty decent Louis Walsh impression, and he knows it.

He raises his voice, twisting his hand like Louis does, and waves towards the stage. “Next up we have a young chap from Ireland.”

“Not so young,” Louis butts in. “Looks like he’s in the overs category, no?”

Harry looks over at Niall, who has jumped off the desk and is bounding towards the stage. He still looks young, his dyed blond tips hiding any hint of grey and his knees holding up well after two surgeries each. Harry shrugs, though, admitting, “Yeah, you’re right. We have an old chap from Ireland. What’s your name, old chap?”

“Niall Horan.” Niall rings his hands together and shuffles his feet, in a pretty shitty imitation of the nerves they were all feeling the first time they stepped on this stage.

“Right, and, Nigel you said?” Louis ignores the way Harry buries his laugh in his hand, and keeps going. “Who are your musical influences?”

“Oh, um, like, Beyoncé. Justin Bieber. I’m compared to him a lot.”

“Right, right. A little big for your britches, I see.” Louis nods, pretending to take a note on his iPad, and Harry nudges him, making a big show of leaning forward and stage whispering.

“It’s the hair.”

Louis purses his lips and tilts his head. “Yeah, right, I can see it now. Well, Nigel, sing for us now, whenever you’re ready.”

Niall looks down, brushing his hair into his eyes, then tips his head back and grabs a microphone. He does a dumbed-down version of his audition song – Ne-Yo’s “So Sick” – tilting his voice high and wobbly, adopting a tone similar to the way he sounded when he was sixteen and terrified and standing at the edge of the world. Louis lets him go on, grinning from ear-to-ear and wishing that he had pulled out his phone to record this, until Harry finally raises his hand to stop it.

“Well, Cheryl, what do you think?”

“Mmm,” Louis bites at his lower lip, squinting his eyes at Niall. “I don’t know, mate. You’ve got natural charm, but, your song choice was terrible. I just don’t know if I can put you through. Louis?”

Harry leans back, resting his feet against the edge of the desk and drumming his fingers on his knees. “I agree, Cheryl, that wasn’t the best song. But, I like you. You have-” Harry pauses, drawing it out, “potential. And I’d like to see more of that. You’re through, Nigel.”

Niall whoops, throwing his hands in the air and dancing around in a circle. Harry and Louis exchange glances and, for just a moment, it feels like it did a decade ago, like they’re so in sync that all it takes is a raised eyebrow and a nod, and they’re both out of their chairs and rushing Niall for an enthusiastic group hug. 

Niall laughs, a little out of breath, when he finally pulls back. “Lou, mate, you’re harsh. Good think you’re not a judge.”

Louis shrugs. “From what I’ve seen, you’re pretty harsh yourself. Didn’t you have that Sam girl crying at Judges’ Houses?”

Niall flushes. “Not on purpose.”

“Sure.” Louis says, run through with sarcasm, even though Niall actually looks a little distressed as he brushes his hair back into the quiff he wears regularly. 

They both turn to Harry to mediate, and he holds up his hands. “No comment until I’ve had a chance to see the whole season.”

“Haz,” Niall whines.

Harry shrugs, embarrassed. “Can’t figure out how to set up the DVR.”

“Jesus.” Louis brushes his own hair out of his eyes. “I’ll send someone over to help.”

“Thanks,” Harry says, all sheepish and long limbs, still draped over Niall and looking around in awe at the stage. “So, ahh, rehearsal?” He asks, finally, steeling himself with a deep breath and disentangling himself before reaching for his guitar.

And Louis shouldn’t be surprised. Harry’s always been dedicated and driven, Harry and Liam, and there’s no reason, really, to think that six years out of the limelight would change that.

If he’s honest, though, Louis’s been thinking of a Harry-Niall duet as a producer’s nightmare, remembering jokes and hours laughing so hard their faces turned red and they had to gasp for breathe. Louis’s forgotten the times before and after those, the hours and hours spent rehearing, writing songs, Niall teaching Harry to play the guitar, perfecting their harmonies. Being proper, hard-working professionals.

Someday – soon, Louis really hopes soon – he’s going to stop forgetting those moments.

***

"Happy birthday Nialler," Louis shouts around the giant balloons he's trying to shove through the pub door.

Liam greets him at the door, grabbing at the biggest one - a green, white, and orange one half the size of Louis’s body - from inside and pulling until it pops free. Louis slips in, shoving the balloons directly into Niall's hands.

"Mad." Niall clutches at them. "Thanks Tommo, these are killer."

"Thought you'd like them." Louis sneaks under the balloons to squeeze close to Niall's body and press a wet, noisy kiss to his cheek. "Nothing too big for our Nialler."

"Fuck off." Niall pushes Louis away, but his cheeks are ruddy and broken by a wide smile. "I'm 30 now. I deserve big things."

"Which is why," Louis says, valiantly ignoring all the double entendres running through his head as he grabs onto the football balloon and holds it up, "I got you a Niall-sized football. Perfect, innit?"

"Perfect as perfect can be," Niall agrees, grabbing it from Louis and wrapping his arms around it. "I'm never gonna let it go."

"Good. Was hell getting ‘em into the cab. I went through a lot of pain for that football. You should appreciate it properly."

“You don’t wanna know what he was planning before the balloons,” Liam adds. He’s holding two drinks and he reaches past Niall to hand Louis one of them. Whiskey sour. Liam knows what Louis’s like on whiskey – soft and easy after a glass or two - and he smiles at Louis, a flush betraying the innocent tilt of his lips.

"I love them." Niall nods, solemnly, still hugging the football. 

Louis chuckles, allowing Liam to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him away, to the bar, where Zayn and Harry are leaning against the steel tabletop, working their way through a bottle of rum. 

“Celebrating in style, boys?” Liam asks, pulling away from Louis to clap both their shoulders, his fingers curling gently over the bare skin of Harry’s collarbone. Louis can’t look away. 

Zayn holds up his shot glass. “Cheers.” 

Harry giggles, dropping his head onto his folded arms even as he arches his back to press further into Liam’ hand. Liam’s thumb draws deliberate, slow patterns over the top of Harry’s spine, and Louis’s dick twitches against the expensive fabric of his trousers.

Surreptitiously, or at least Louis hopes it’s surreptitiously, he presses the heel of his hand between his legs as he down his whiskey sour and waves at the bartender for another.

“Hey.” Zayn bumps Louis’s hip, and Louis pulls his hand away. Zayn chuckles, holding up a clean shot glass and slanting his eyes, too knowing and definitely too sympathetic. “Gonna get trashed tonight?”

“It is Nialler’s birthday,” Louis agrees. He’s feeling way too sober, and he clinks their glasses together before tipping his head back and downing his shot. Rum and whiskey aren’t always the best mix for him, but, eh, Niall’s birthday tends to be the least respectable night of the year so he might as well give into it from the beginning.

It must have been the right choice, as he feels Liam’s hand on his waist again, knows it’s Liam by the blunt fingernails where he still bites them, and the developing calluses from the guitar lessons he’s been taking on alternate Saturdays. Louis holds his head back a few seconds longer, swallowing over the rum, and when he opens his eyes, Liam’s watching him, pupils wide and his other hand digging bruises into Harry’s shoulder.

Louis can’t help it as he reaches forward, tugging on Harry’s other shoulder with his free hand at the same time as he leans into Liam. It’s an awkward hug, the angle all wrong and messy, and when he says, “it’s so nice to have the boys back together again,” it’s at least seventy-five percent the alcohol talking. The other twenty-five is sentiment, though, and Louis figures that’s progress.

Progress Louis takes liberally, as the night progresses and he remembers why he doesn’t, as a general rule, mix alcohols anymore. Namely, because he gets handsy, forgetting every lesson Modest! ever taught him about toning down his personality, about being less flamboyant and more respectable. More like Liam, they use to say, in the very beginning. Before they learned that Liam tends towards sweet, sentimental speeches, dick grabs, and blowjob innuendo even when sober. That Liam Louis will emulate all day, draping his arms over Harry’s shoulders and pressing messy birthday kisses into Niall’s jaw. 

“That should, like, be one of those public service campaign-thingies.” He waves his free hand and Zayn pulls his glass out of the way before Louis can knock it over. He reaches up, bumping his shoulder against Louis’s in solidarity or something, Louis isn’t really sure.

“What should?” Harry asks. He’s still leaning against Liam, his hands on Liam’s hips and Liam’s fingers in his hair. Louis reaches for Zayn’s dick in retaliation.

“Hey,” Zayn protests, grabbing at Louis’s other wrist and holding him away. Louis doesn’t bother not pouting. “Go bug someone who you actually have a chance of getting off with tonight.”

And Louis knows that Zayn doesn’t necessarily mean Liam and Harry doesn’t know, can’t know, not yet. Not when Louis and Liam haven’t figured it out enough to share with people. People who aren’t Zayn and Niall, who both knew without asking, long before Louis actually talked to them about it. So, Louis’s prepared to blow it off, shrug against Zayn and make a few half-hearted motions towards Niall’s cousin at the end of the bar.

It’s Liam who gives them away. His body tightens next to Harry’s, his eyes going wide under frowning eyebrows, and his flush reaching behind his ears and down his open v-neck shirt. That flush is a dead give away, has been since he lowered his head and shuffled his feet and told them that maybe, possibly, he had a thing for one of the X-Factor dancers, but that he’d never do something to jeopardize their careers, they know that, right?

“That’s nice,” is all Harry says, though, and it could be about anything. The weather, the whiskey, Niall’s birthday, the way his jeans fit; but, it’s not. It’s about this, them, Liam and Louis and everything they possibly are to each other At least Harry isn’t frowning, and he hasn’t pulled away from Liam, seems to have settled even further against him, actually, shooting curious glances between Louis and Liam when he thinks neither of them notice.

Except, Louis is taking notice. Finally. After seven years of pretending not to and another six of definitely not noticing at all, Louis is hyper aware of everything Harry does. It gets under his skin, itchy and too warm, every time Harry glances his way, biting his lip and squinting his eyes and pushing his hip insistently into Liam’s. 

Louis’s buzzing with it by the time the strippers/exotic dancers he paid to show up have arrived. 

“You didn’t.” Zayn glares at him, tucking his chin over Liam’s decidedly uncomfortable shoulder. They’re both starting at the girls, dressed in Irish football jerseys, green knee socks, and little else.

Louis flashes his middle finger. “Our Nialler doesn’t turn 30 every day.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “If you ever do this for me, your dick is mine.”

“I’m hurt.” Louis holds his hand to his chest and he’s having a hard time not laughing. His skin is tingling, weighted down by whiskey and Harry’s stare, but he shrugs it off. He doesn’t even care that Zayn’s lips are moving against Liam’s neck, nothing of the jealousy he was feeling towards Harry earlier rolling through his veins. He flicks Zayn’s ear anyway. “Did I not throw you the perfect thirtieth?”

Zayn grunts because Louis did. Well, Louis and Liam did. It had taken a lot of work finding a place – work that consisted, mostly, of stolen kisses in dirty alleyways long before they were really anything, but, whatever, it still counts as work – but eventually they had rented a warehouse, filled it with an open bar, beanbag chairs, and a lot of weed, and had helped Zayn spray-paint collages onto the walls. Louis had been picking bits of orange and teal paint out of his hair for weeks. It had been epic.

“That’s right, I know what my boys like,” Louis crows, dancing away from the hand Zayn’s trying to cuff him with. “Niall just tends to like half-naked women.” Louis shrugs. “A lot.”

Zayn grunts again, and Louis decides to take that as affirmation that he’s done good. Which is nice, because he did need the affirmation a bit. Thirtieth birthdays are important. It would suck to fuck one of them up.

Zayn turns back to the bar, waving his arm for another bottle of Captain Morgan, and Louis settles next to him, elbows on the bar behind them. He seeks out Harry immediately, but he’s busy with one of the exotic dancers, tipping his phone to her and, judging by the small, real smile on the girl’s face, probably showing her Gemma’s ultrasound pictures. Louis snorts, glancing over Zayn’s head at Liam, who’s still looking awkward, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers and trying to look anywhere but at all the naked skin.

“Wanna get out of here?” Louis mouths, motioning ‘blowjob’ with his hands.

Liam’s eyes widen – as if this moment hasn’t been Liam’s goal all night - but he nods, downing the rest of his drink.

Louis does the same, bumping his shoulder with Zayn’s. “We’re getting outta here.”

“What? You’re leaving me here alone?”

“We’re not.” Liam presses another kiss to Zayn’s neck. It’s sloppy and public and Louis grins; he loves buzzed Liam. “You’ve got a bottle of Cap’n. And Harry.”

Louis glances over to where Harry’s still flipping through pictures of Gemma, and even the dancer seems to be getting bored and has taken to flirting. She’s batting her eyelashes, rubbing her chest against his arm, but he’s oblivious, just pressing the phone closer and smiling his ‘I’m going to be an Uncle’ grin. Zayn rolls his head back to look at Louis and Liam. “Worst mates ever.”

Louis shrugs. “Sorry, but, can’t say we care enough to stay, do we, Payno?”

Liam shuffles his feet, clenching and unclenching his fist on his thigh and, fuck, he’s already a little hard. Louis can see the weight of his dick outlined in the dark denim of his jeans and Louis swallows hard – pun intended, thank you - before pressing his fingers to the fabric bunched at Liam’s hip and pushing him to the door.

Their office is only a couple blocks away, and Louis drags him there, not inclined to wait for a taxi and the long-ish drive to either of their places. Besides, he’s feeling wired and reckless and he can’t predict what he might do with too much time, pressed into the back of a cab with just Liam and a driver who could sell their story to the Daily Mail for a million pounds.

The lights are off and the front doors are locked. Which isn’t good news for business, and Louis starts composing a mental e-mail to his staff about initiative and working late. It is good news, though, for Louis’s sex life, so he won’t actually send the e-mail until the morning. 

Liam pauses at the door, trying to fish his keys out of his front pocket. Louis presses against him, his lips brushing against the skin of Liam’s neck and Liam shivers, pressing back, just a little bit, so that his ass fits snuggly into the curve of Louis’s body, like it was built to be there.

It’s just the reminder Louis needs. He reaches around, slipping his hand into Liam’s pocket, brushing his fingers across Liam’s dick, slow and deliberate, as he pulls out the key and slips it into the lock. 

“Something you want?” Liam asks, stumbling through the door, his laughter swallowed by Louis’s mouth as he stops halfway up the stairs to press Liam against the railing.

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs, hitching his hips forward and pressing his dick into Liam’s thigh, rubbing urgently.

Liam groans into Louis’s mouth, arching off the railing where it’s digging into his back, pushing their erections together, burning and aching through zippers and denim and cotton and making Louis’s head spin hazy and muddled. Liam’s groan dips low. “Okay, okay, yeah. My office.”

Louis wants to protest. He wants to be in control tonight, to be the one to push Liam and take him apart, to know that _he’s_ the one who’s allowed to do that, the one whom Liam trusts to put him back together. But, Liam’s office is a few feet closer, and Louis isn’t about to argue with anything that will allow him to suck Liam’s dick sooner.

So, he pushes at Liam’s shoulder, holding onto the loop of his jeans, fingers pressing needily into Liam’s back until they fall together towards Liam’s office.

Inside, Louis doesn’t bother to turn on a light as he presses Liam back against the edge of his desk. The lights of London are enough, covering the room in a low, orange glow, enough to see the flushed, pale hue of Liam’s skin as Louis drops to his knees and pushes Liam’s trousers and boxers down his thighs.

“God,” Liam groans, his hands flexing on Louis’s shoulders and his body jerking as Louis wraps him in his fist. Liam’s already worked up, leaking around Louis’s fingers and onto his tongue, the way he only does after being hard and on edge for hours. 

Louis really hopes it has more to do with Louis than with the way Liam was pressed along Harry’s side all night. At least, he figures, he’s the one that Liam went home with, he’s the one on his knees with all of London spread out behind him and Liam on his tongue. Louis doesn’t have long to worry about it, anyway, as he loosens his throat and takes Liam deep, humming around him and letting Liam’s little moans and whines wash away his insecurities.

"Lou, Lou, Lou." Liam's fingers tighten in Louis’s hair, the way they always do when he's close, pulling at Louis at the same time as he pushes his hips forward, like he knows exactly what he wants, but thinks it's rude to ask for it. 

Louis pulls off just long enough to order "come on" and watch Liam's dick slap against his stomach before Louis wraps his fist around it, wet with spit and precome. Liam groans, his muscles shaking with the effort of holding his weight against his desk, and Louis leans forward, wrapping his lips around just the head and hollowing his cheeks to provide suction as he squeezes the base.

Liam swears as he comes, thighs jerking around Louis’s head and abs fluttering against his forehead. Louis sighs into him, flattening his tongue under the head and easing Liam through it, taking everything Liam has and asking for a little more. Liam whimpers, broken and awed, fingers painfully tight in Louis’s hair. 

Louis loves this part. Loves the moments just after orgasm, when Liam, so tight and controlled, eases under Louis’s hands, forgetting himself in Louis’s mouth. Just for a few long, quiet moments, punctuated by the little breathy moans Liam can't quite contain and the huffy sounds of Louis breathing through his nose.

But then Liam groans, satisfied and happy but definitely back in his own body, as he tugs at Louis’s hair. Louis doesn't fight him, stumbling to his feet and ignoring the ache in his knees as he leans into Liam, settling between his spread legs. Liam's hands are warm and much too steady as he slips them under Louis’s shirt to rest against his back. "God, Tommo, gets better every time."

Maybe not completely himself, then. Louis grins. "Gonna remind you that you said that in the morning."

Liam's fingers dig into the flesh right at the swell of Louis’s ass. "You have no proof."

"Don't we have security cameras in this place?"

"Fucking hope not."

"I don't know." Louis presses forward, dragging the hard edge of his dick against Liam and Liam swears as the harsh cotton of Louis’s trousers burns against his softening erection. "I kinda like putting on a show for the lads in security."

Liam wraps his hands around Louis’s hips, holding him steady and just a couple inches from his body. "Course you do."

"Don't play it off. I know just how-" Louis squeezes Liam, his hiss pooling hotly between Louis’s legs. "- turned on you get knowing that just, just maybe, there's a chance of getting caught." He leans forwards, lips brushing against Liam's ear. "Always did."

Liam growls, pushing away from the table and flipping them, lifting Louis effortlessly onto his desk. Louis would be offended by that, if he wasn't too busy parting his thighs and pulling Liam between them. Liam presses his hip into the bulge in Louis’s dress trousers and Louis thrusts his hips shallowly, wrapping his arms around Liam's neck and leveraging his body forward.

"Are we just gonna ignore how many times I found you on the bus? Or wanking in your dressing room? Or behind the ficus plant in- where was it?"

"Brisbane."

"Ahh, right." Louis pushes forward, pressing against Liam's shoulders as he picks up the pace in his hips. "Lovely country Australia."

"You wanna wind yourself up all night or-" Liam's tone is calm, measured, belayed by the way his hands hover over Louis’s belt buckle. 

Louis shrugs. "Kinda enjoying myself actually."

"Is that right?"

“Mmm hmm,” Louis tries to hum, but it comes out strangled and breathy as Liam slips his hand into the v of Louis’s trousers, brushing his fingers over the rough cotton of Louis’s pants, already wet and stained at the head.

“Thank god-” Liam says, as he pushes Louis’s pants out of the way and gets his fingers wrapped around Louis’s dick. It feels wonderful, Liam’s fingertips calloused but his palm soft and warm, and Louis keens. Liam grins, setting a slow, meticulous rhythm designed to set every one of Louis’s nerves on knifepoint. “- that I’ve finally found something to shut you up.”

And Louis doesn’t even bother with a retort, because he loves this. The feel of Liam pressed against him, pulling a steady stream of arousal from his body as he stares out Liam's floor-to-ceiling windows. He can pick out the lights of the buildings around them and wonders if others are doing the same thing they are, maybe fucking their secretaries or partners or secret girlfriends. Or maybe those lights are lawyers and executives pulling at their eyes, weighted down with coffee and more work than can possibly be done in normal business hours. Two kinds of people, Louis guesses, and there’s a certain romanticism to both. Louis has been both; has, in fact, loved being both. 

"Stop. Thinking." Liam punctuates his words with two hard, quick, pumps.

"Make me."

Liam drops his forehead to Louis’s shoulder, screwing his face up in concentration, and Louis doesn't remember much after that. His world narrows to the wet, slick sound of Liam's fist around him, the feel of long, slow, tantalizing strokes interspersed with quick, breathless tugs, the way Liam’s fist twists at the top, the hot puffs of Liam's breath on his collarbone and the way his lips tug and pull at Louis’s skin. Louis’s not sure when he starts to come, with the city lights blinking in his eyes and Liam filling his head. Not until Liam lifts his head, leaning in for a kiss and Louis realizes, with a start, that Liam's easing him through it, his whole body hot and strung out.

"God."

"Just call me Liam."

Louis hates that joke, but Liam's smiling at him, small and a little unsure and so fucking Liam. So all Louis does is lean forward, pulling Liam in for another kiss and biting a little reprimand into his bottom lip that is, most likely, lost on Louis’s tongue.

Eventually, though, Louis’s legs are starting to cramp and he can feel the way Liam's back is bunched and tight under his fingers. He leans back, resting his hands on the desk, rolling his shoulders and loosening his thighs from around Liam's hips. Liam stands straight, hands kneading at his lower back as he groans, almost tripping over a stack of papers on the floor and Louis laughs.

"We made quite a mess of your office, I'm afraid."

Liam glances around, like he's trying to muster the energy to be annoyed, before giving up and dropping his neck to the side to stretch it out. "I'll deal with it in the morning. Perks of being the boss."

"Best perk, probably." Louis lifts his hips, loving the way Liam's eyes darken and watch him as he pulls his pants and trousers up. "Again?"

"I wish." Liam looks like he really does regret his refractory period, but when they get to the car park he doesn’t do more than press a close-mouthed kiss to Louis’s mouth. "See you in the morning."

"Sure." Louis bites his lip around the desire to ask Liam to come home with him, and he definitely doesn't stand there, watching Liam drive away. It's not like this isn't the status quo for whatever it is they've been doing. 

He does, however, wonder when he started wanting something more.

***

"Maybe you should, I don't know, ask him." Zayn rolls his eyes when Louis tries to talk to him about Liam. Zayn can roll his eyes harder than anyone Louis’s ever met. Louis wonder, often, how it doesn’t physically hurt.

"What would I say?" Louis scoffs, adopting his best 'you're an idiot' voice that also tends to sound a bit - he maintains coincidentally - like his Zayn voice. "‘Hey, Li, you know that casual, no-strings-attached thing we've got going on? Yeah? Well, how about we change that? Preferably, to a very string-y, Sunday tea with the in-laws, hold hands at the opera kinda thing.’"

"I'd leave the in-laws bit out just yet."

"Zayn."

"Lou."

"I need actual advice here. It's not nice to kick a man when he's down, what have I taught you all these years?"

Zayn raises an eyebrow over the student paper he's grading. "To stand over a fallen man and cackle. Loudly. With lots of pictures."

"Well," Louis shrugs. That's really quite accurate. Louis’s an awesome teacher, thank you very much. "Yeah. And share them with me."

Zayn grunts.

"I'm really feeling the sympathy here, Z."

"Probably cause I'm not giving any." He taps at Louis’s ankles, crossed over a stack of papers on Zayn's desk. "Budge up."

Louis moves his feet, but he makes sure he does it slowly, with as much reluctance as he possesses. He also pouts, loud enough for Zayn to sigh heavily as he gathers up the pile of papers.

"I have class."

"Great." Louis claps his hands, bounding up and falling into step beside Zayn. The hallways are filled with undergrads rushing for coffee and desperately trying to finish readings in between classes. Students have always scared him a little, and he hunches his shoulders in, staying close to Zayn's back. "I'll come with."

Zayn looks over, mouth thick with disbelief. "I have to actually teach. Like, lecture about Michelangelo to a room full of first years. You know this isn't like college, yeah?"

Louis doesn't actually know anything about how university works, but he shrugs anyway. "I'm just walking with you. I'll leave the minute you say anything about color wheels.”

Zayn just shakes his head, but when they reach his classroom he holds out his hand to stop Louis’s momentum. “Lou, this isn’t, like, it’s not a response to Harry being back, is it?”

“What?” Louis’s voice is higher than he’d like. Louder, too, if the way Zayn’s students are glancing at him is any indication. He drops his voice, leaning into Zayn’s space. “No, it’s not- I like Liam. A lot. It’s- I can’t explain it, yeah? But, Li and I, we’ve been growing together for ages.”

Zayn sighs, releasing it out his nose in a loud, slow, puff of air. “I know.” He doesn’t look properly convinced, though, even as he drops his hand, adjusts his pile of papers, and leads the way into the classroom.

Louis follows, and freezes. Right there, sitting in the back row, his attention focused on the phone balanced precariously on his knee, bent against a desk, is Harry. “What’s, um,” Louis swallows, “what’s he doing here?”

"Who?" Zayn asks, even though he has to know exactly whom Louis’s referring to. Then, without looking up, "He comes every class."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's interested in Italian painting."

Louis snorts.

"Could be." Zayn shrugs, glancing in Harry’s direction. "Probably not."

Louis snorts again, mumbling under his breath as he moves further into the room. 

Zayn starts, his eyes finally focusing on Louis. “You’re not staying.”

It’s not a question, but Louis sticks out his tongue and answers anyway. “’Bout time I saw one of your classes, no?”

Louis doesn’t wait for a response before he turns his back, taking the steps two at a time and knocking into Harry’s desk. Harry’s phone tips off his knee and he scrambles to catch it – unsuccessfully – before smirking up at Louis. “You come here often?”

Louis doesn’t think it’s meant to be the world’s worst pick-up line, but it succeeds all the same, and he has to stifle his laughter in his sleeve as he settles next to Harry. The desks are small and their knees bump under them, and Louis feels himself flush behind his ears. He imagines this is what it would have been like if he and Harry had gone to uni. Together. It would have been baller. “Nah, but, I hear you do.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Since I got back, yeah.”

“Cool.” Louis folds his hands on his desk, pretending to be a good, attentive student. Harry doesn’t bother stifling his laugh. “I figured it was time to see how Zayn deals with a room full of eighteen-year-olds.”

“He’s quite brilliant,” Harry says, defensively, and Louis just sits back, pulling his knees from Harry’s and crossing his ankles on top of the desk as Zayn calls the class to order.

And the thing is, Harry’s observations aren’t wrong. Zayn’s patient and casual, but doesn’t hesitate to call a girl out in the back for ordering a sweater from H&M when she’s supposed to be answering a question about Monet. Or, at least, Louis thinks it’s Monet. He’s a little distracted by the notes Harry keeps passing him, typing them out in the Notes section of his iPad and turning them towards Louis until Louis’s pulling his sleeve past his wrist and snorting into it, hoping, uselessly, that the cotton will muffle the sound.

“You two,” Zayn says, when he dismisses class and it’s just Louis and Harry, looking small and chastised in the back of the room, “are absolutely the worst students I’ve ever had.”

“Ahh, Professor Malik, we’re certainly not the worst.” Louis lets the front legs of his chair clatter to the ground as he rights himself in his seat.

“Definitely the worst,” Zayn disagrees, shaking his head.

Harry shrugs, slipping his iPad into his bag as if he took a single note on it. “Probably a good thing I never went to university”

Louis turns to him, aghast, hand on his chest and mouth open wide. “Speak for yourself, mate. I would have been killer at uni.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and he slips his own bag over his shoulder. “Emphasis on ‘killer.’”

Harry laughs, the way he used to, low in his chest, dimples digging deep rivulets in to his cheeks, and maybe, just maybe, they can be friends again. Or, at least, maybe they can pretend that they never stopped.

***

The first weekend in October comes quicker than anyone, Louis included, is really ready for.

Niall wants to pre-tape the duet. For his own sake, he argues, citing higher standards for coaches and all that. Harry, though, sees Niall’s protests for what they are – i.e. a sad attempt to ease Harry back into this whole live singing thing after six years away – and begs off, even if the corners of his eyes do look a little raw and worn. The same way they did thirteen years ago, before their ill-fated Red or Black? performance. Just like they did four years after that, when, sick and exhausted, Harry breathed through his nose and faulted at the exact same point in his What Makes You Beautiful at the iHeart Music Festival in Vegas. A mistake he’d repeat, still a little drunk, probably a lot hung-over, three years after that at the 2017 Brit Awards.

Harry’s never liked live TV performances.

And Niall, well, Niall’s never actually found a way to numb his nerves before any kind of performance. It’s a miracle, really, that he’s the one doing live television twice a week. Louis’s pretty amazed, like, every day that Niall doesn’t have a mental breakdown. Sends him congratulatory texts every morning after an X-Factor live show.

It’s too bad Harry isn’t doing this duet with Liam or Zayn or, even, Louis himself. Any of the cool ones, all puns intended.

It’s Harry’s song, though. Built around traditional African drum beats and Japanese rhythms, all layered over laid-back, Southern California, Eagles-inspired lyrics. And Niall’s the only one who can play the sanshin, the three-stringed Japanese banjo that Louis had stared at, mouth open, for a full three minutes before passing it to Niall without even trying.

Niall’s also the favorite X-Factor judge this year, with a steady twitter base and weekly TV appearances. As Harry’s manager, Louis can’t ignore the promotional possibilities of a show like X-Factor, with two million built-in fans for Harry’s tenuous prodigal return.

So, Niall it is. Nerves and perpetually bleached hair and big, bright smile and all.

Louis throws Niall a huge thumbs up, smiling as wide as he can when Niall looks their way. He’s perched on a stool in the middle of the stage, his hands strangling the sanshin. Harry’s next to him, leaning into his mic stand and pulling faces at Ellie, sticking his fingers in his cheeks, sticking out his tongue, making moose ears with his hands.

Ellie laughs, burying her head in Louis’s thigh. Her hands tighten, though, as the lights go down, throwing the X-Factor stage into shadows and Liam knees down next to her. “Uncle Harry’s silly, ain’t he?” Liam asks, his hands so big around her waist. She nods, her cheek pressed against Louis’s trousers, and he wants. Wants her to hold him like this forever, wants her to look for him whenever she’s scared, wants her to call him family.

He can’t help the hand he reaches down, running his fingers through Liam’s short hair and scraping against his scalp. Liam leans into it, momentarily, before the opening video starts and Ellie forgets that she’s scared, bouncing against Louis’s leg and pointing at the stage. “Daddy, daddy, it’s you.”

“Sure is,” he says, his smile smaller, but no less content, as he pats her waist and stands, taking her free hand in his as the intro video flashes through old X-Factor footage from, Jesus, thirteen years ago.

It’s too fast for Louis to feel a whole lot of anything, images flashing across the screen in music video-style jump cuts, 2010-2017, following the years before Harry fell off the grid. Louis does get a sense, though, of how much growing up they all did, and not just in how bleached Niall’s hair gets or the length of Harry’s, but in Niall’s growing confidence; in Liam’s slow move to the center, to protect them all from things they didn’t even understand; in the way Harry’s smile dims in kind. 

And then the video cuts off, overlaid with the gourd rattle Harry has in his hands, the sound rhythmic and heavy with a sense of tradition, cutting through the darkness of the arena. The lights rise in time, building slowly, pulsing with the steady clink of the gourd and the piercing, beautiful twang of Niall on the sanshin as he layers in the melody.

Louis’s heard this intro a dozen times, and it never gets less weird. Or less haunting.

When the lights rise, though, and Harry hangs the gourd on his mic stand to wrap both his hands around his mic, he’s the same old Harry. Engrossing, spastic, uncoordinated, throwing every inch of himself into the performance. The consummate performer, no amount of time away from the stage will ever take that away from him. 

Louis has to swallow against the way his stomach is thumping against his chest at the image they make on-stage.

Niall perched on his stool, dressed in a tailored suit, sanshin in his lap, fingers measured and sure. Any failure of confidence he may have been feeling gone, instantaneously, the minute he joins in on the chorus, eyes seeking out Harry’s and grinning.

And Harry grinning back, his voice deeper and edged with more rasp and grit than everyone in the charts today combined. He picks the rattle back up on the chorus, shaking it in his hands as he leans into the mic, his curls pulled back in a ponytail and wrapped in a silk headscarf. His new Ghanaian tribal tattoos wrap artfully up his right arm - such a contrast to the mess of scribbles on his left but no more or less a marking of his history - and disappear under the sleeve of his thin black t-shirt. It’s a scoop neck, the collar stretched and worn, gaping over the edges of the swallows still gracing his collarbones, even more obvious when he leans over the mic, bending his knee to keep the stand in place, slender and gangly and encased in tight, black denim.

Louis’s mouth is dry, but his hand is sweating, slipping around Ellie’s, and he tightens it as well as he can as he glances over at Liam. Liam doesn’t look any better than Louis feels, his lips parted and red, his free hand stuffed uncomfortably into his pocket.

The crowd seems to like it, too. Louis, if he’s completely honest, hasn’t been sure that the market is ready for music like this. The indie crowd, surely, but not the type of mass audience that comes to X-Factor live shows. 

But the beat is good, the verses heartfelt and the chorus simple and catchy even as it drips with traditional and folk roots. It just sounds- ‘important’ is the word Simon would use. 

As he glances around, Louis realizes that, someday, he’s going to have to stop underestimating Harry. Because at the judges’ table, Simon and Demi and Pharrell are all swaying in their seats, and, behind them, the crowd is on their feet, clapping along with the chorus and whistling when the song finishes out on a perfect harmony. Niall and Harry’s timbers always sounded brilliant together. Louis used to spend a lot of time trying not to be jealous about that.

“So, lads, how’d that feel?” Stevie, who took over hosting from Dermot a few years ago, jumps up on stage, wrapping his arm around Harry’s shoulder and ignoring the way Harry unconsciously leans away from him and into Niall.

“Good,” Harry says. “Nice to be out here, again. I started on this stage, and it still feels like coming home.”

Stevie’s eyes light up and Louis hopes against hope that Simon gave him some sort of boundaries before the show began. “And how long’s it been?”

“Since X-Factor? I don’t know- Niall?” Harry purposefully misunderstands, but Niall, lovely, come-to-the-rescue Niall, leans across Harry’s chest so that he can speak into the microphone.

“Thirteen years, if you can believe. Lucky thirteen.” He holds up his crossed fingers and the crowd cheers.

Harry laughs. “I suppose so.”

Stevie seems a little lost in their natural banter. He either didn’t expect it to be so easy after all their years apart, or he hasn’t actually watched any of their old footage. Louis bets on the latter, and makes a mental note to lobby for a new host for next season. Or, to get Niall to do it, as he has a lot of pull these days, where X-Factor’s concerned.

“That’s a long time,” Stevie says, obviously. “And how long has it been since you were singing, Harry?”

“Well,” Harry pauses, for effect, and Louis laughs into his shoulder, hiding it with a cough. Liam reaches over, patting his back, his eyes sparkling. “I never really stopped singing. It’s not, like, something I can turn off, yeah? I was just doing, like, some different things these last few years.”

And Louis freezes under Liam’s hand, because Harry might be a natural back on stage, but he’s clearly forgotten how to do an interview. Or, too much time in high altitudes, lack of oxygen upsetting his brain functions now that Modest! isn’t monitoring his every word. Had to be something that bad to leave an opening like that, for an interviewer like Stevie.

_Are those rumors of rehab true, then? I hear rehab’s very inspirational._

Or, _Has singing been easier, then, after you’ve recovered from your mental breakdown? We’ve heard so many rumors about how taxing the fame was for you._

Or, _When you say ‘different,’ what do you mean by that? How did you really feel after One Direction broke up? Do you take the blame?_

Louis hears all those questions in the span of the time it takes for Niall to wrap his hand around the mic and turn his smile onto the crowd. “If you liked that song, you know exactly what Haz means. And you’ll be getting much more of it when the album comes out next year. No release date yet, but, don’t worry, I’ll be keeping you updated on its progress.” Niall winks, large enough for the studio audience and the television cameras, and then Niall’s walking back to his place at the judges’ table, taking the microphone with him.

Harry bows, once, hands clasped in front of his chest, and then Stevie’s moving into a commercial break and Harry’s bounding off stage. His shirt is sticking to his body, drenched in sweat, but he’s grinning, face split with the joy of being on the stage again, as if his slip-up is already forgotten. Louis really has to get him back into media training as soon as possible. 

He doesn’t have the heart, though, to chastise Harry about it now. Not when, rather than head backstage to clean up, Harry comes directly for them, bending and swinging Ellie onto his hip when she pulls out of Liam and Louis’s hands to run towards him.

“Hey, Jelly-Belly. How’d I do?” Harry asks, pulling his inner ears to hang around his neck and not complaining when she twirls one around her fingers.

“So good,” she says, all shy and sincere, ducking her head. Louis’ pretty sure that’s a phrase she’s learned from him, and he feels himself flush.

Harry laughs, his free hand resting on her chest as he ducks his head to meet her eyes. “Yeah?”

She nods, her pigtails brushing against his nose, her legs swinging to kick against his waist again and again. Harry grimaces, but doesn’t do anything more than adjust his hand under her, pulling her even closer to him. Louis thinks, wildly and dangerously, that Harry will make such a good father, someday. It’s a thought he’s had, over and over again over the years, but it’s never seemed so salient, so blatant, as it does right now.

“Hey, hey.” Liam reaches out, resting his fingers on her ankle to keep her still. 

She frowns, burying her face in Harry’s neck and leaving it there. She doesn’t do more than spare Liam short, disgruntled glances as the show goes on and Louis’s pretty sure she got that trick from him, too.

“I can take her,” Liam says, about halfway through, when she’s become dead weight, breathing heavily into the cotton of Harry’s t-shirt, her thumb in her mouth.

Harry shrugs as carefully as he can around her. “Nah, I’m good. I figure I owe you, for all the times I’ve missed holding her when you needed me to. I’ve got five years to make up for.”

“Harry, you don’t-” Liam looks stricken, his mouth slack and his body rigid. “You don’t have anything to make up for.”

Harry brings his free hand to Ellie’s hair, kissing the top of her head and leaving his lips there. “I do, though. So much.” He sounds sad – the kind of sad that only seems to come through in his writing - for the first time since he got back and tornado-ed his way into all of their lives. 

He stays like that for the rest of the show. His lips pressed to the top of Ellie’s head, Liam’s hand hovering over Harry’s lower back, Louis’s stomach twisting painfully in his throat. Louis hurts, choked and overwhelmed, his feet sore and his thoughts banging deep bruises in to his mind.

So, after the show, when Ellie wakes, snuffling into Harry’s neck and whining for her bed, Louis looks for a distraction, any distraction. Namely, ribbing Simon about the last band One Mode signed out from under him. 

Simon just laughs, pulling out his iPhone and shaking it in Louis’s direction. “Who topped the Charts this week?”

Louis feigns ignorance, as if he doesn’t get alerted every time there’s a subtle change in the official charts, the Twitter charts, the digital charts, the video charts, or any other alert that has the word ‘chart’ in it. “Was it Jessie James?”

“Nice try, Tommo.”

“Whatever,” Louis teases. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Bobby won’t make it a week.”

“Those britches are looking a little small.” Simon raises an eyebrow, glancing past Louis to where Liam and Harry are chatting with Niall, and Louis’s pretty sure he’s eighteen again, dodging Simon’s raised eyebrows in rehearsal every time Harry hits a high note and Louis’s eyes turn too soft and too fond.

Louis never has learned to keep his emotions out of his eyes.

It’s infuriating.

“If you ever want me to take Bobby off your hands-” Louis offers, forcing himself to snicker and forcing his hands to be less sweaty as he shakes Simon’s and skips over to the judging table. “Hey Nialler. Up for a night out?”

Niall shrugs under Louis’s hands. “I wouldn’t say no to a pint.”

Harry laughs. “You never say no to a pint.”

“Too true, mate.” Niall winks. “You coming?”

“Nah.” Harry adjusts Ellie on his hip. “I owe this one five years of bedtime stories. Also, probably, a shower.”

Louis blacks out for a moment on the image of Harry showering in Liam’s bathroom, stripping down, toes curling against the cold white tile, washing his hair with that ridiculous coconut Boots shampoo that makes Louis’s hair dry and brittle. He’s not really sure how long he’s mentally distracted for, but when he blinks, he’s in Niall’s dressing room, faced with all five feet and a bit of pale, naked, flushed Irish skin.

“Jesus, warn a lad.”

Niall throws him a concerned look. “Back with us then?” 

“Never left.”

Niall snorts, pulling a shirt off the hanging rack and turning towards Louis as he pulls it on. It’s not like Louis hasn’t seen him, all of him, thousands of times in hundreds of iterations – has, in fact, heard him pull one too many times to count and, on one unbearably memorable occasion, watched him come in some girl’s mouth behind a club in Stockholm – but, really, Louis could live without him standing there in nothing but a shirt, dick soft and loose between his legs.

“Put it away. It’s not that impressive.”

“Oh yeah?” Niall cups himself, dangling close to where Louis’s camped out on the couch, laughing when Louis slaps him away, getting a bit too close.

Louis shakes his hand. He didn’t actually plan on touching Niall’s dick, but, when he takes the piss out of a situation, he tends to go all out. “Eww, Niall cooties.”

“You should be so lucky,” Niall says airily as he finally, finally, pulls pants and trousers on. “Ready?”

“To drink away this memory?” Louis’s still shaking his hand and frowning. “Definitely.” 

They settle into a dive bar not too far from the studio. It’s mostly frequented by locals and contestants, but Louis pulls himself onto a bar stool, planning on drinking way too much, way too quickly, to use this night for business. He should probably call Liam, get him down here to do the whole sober-and-talking-to-potential-clients thing, but just the thought brings images swimming into focus: Harry and Liam sitting on Ellie’s bed, _Cat in the Hat_ open on Harry’s lap as he does all the different voices; Harry and Liam pressing goodnight kisses into Ellie’s forehead, hands dangling together on her duvet; Harry and Liam leaning forward and-

Louis waves his hand for the bartender. “Shots. Lots of them. In fact, you can just hand me the bottle of Jack. More efficient, that.”

Niall, bless him, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

They’re halfway through the bottle, with Niall’s cheeks flushed pink and his eyes a little glassy and bluer than normal, when Niall transitions so smoothly from actively describing his latest one-night stand with Demi to “so, have you read it?” that Louis almost misses it.

Almost, being the operative word. He pretends not to have heard anyway, focusing, instead, on the Demi thing. “You know, it’s no longer a one-off when it happens five times.”

“Is when you don’t stay for breakfast.” Niall says, just as smoothly. “And don’t ignore the question.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Always the gentleman.” Not that he can say anything. When was the last time he stayed the night at Liam’s? Before August, surely.

“Lou-”

Louis hates being that guy, the guy who drinks and gets sad and whiny, but Niall’s looking at him all sympathetic and sad around his eyes and fuck it. Niall’s certainly seen it enough times to know exactly the moment Louis drinks himself past chatty and happy into maudlin and depressing. “Yeah,” Louis sighs. “I started it, anyway. The book.”

Niall raises an eyebrow that’s a hell of a lot more sober than it was five minutes ago. “Started?”

“I’m reading it slowly.”

“I know. So many memories, right?” Niall’s smiling, teeth white and large on his lower lip and Louis nods.

“Something like that.” Something on the scale from ‘savoring it’ to ‘it’s so emotional that I can handle about a paragraph a night before I spiral into an identity crisis,’ anyway. 

Despite his light tone, Louis’s pretty sure his face says it all.

“Fucking Haz.” Niall shakes his head, snaking his hand under the bar to rest, sweaty and warm, on Louis’s knee. “Should have known he’d be the one to write the tell all we always wanted.”

“Always thought Z would paint us a mural first, to be honest.”

Niall laughs. “He’d give us all three heads.”

“You’d get three. I’d only get two. And maybe a unicorn horn.”

“He’d save that for Hazza.”

“Yeah, probably.” Niall’s smile settles, his fist steady against Louis’s knee. “It’s good, though. The book. Like, just enough, you know? The truth, without giving away the car.”

“The store.”

“What?”

“That’s the phrase – ‘giving away the store.’”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Whatever. We’ve drunk-” He picks up the bottle, swirling it around and peering at it. “I’m seeing a little fuzzy.”

“Not enough though.” Louis grabs the bottle, filling both their shot glasses and knocking his back, before filling it again.

Niall runs his index finger over the rim of his glass, before raising his finger to his mouth and licking the alcohol off. His tongue is pink and rough against the pad of his finger and Louis swallows. Niall laughs, dropping his fingers to the glass again. “Shit, mate, you need to get laid.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Why are you here then?”

“Drinkin’ with my ole buddy Nialler.”

“Don’t use me as an excuse, man.”

“Gotta use something,” Louis says in a fit of truthfulness that Louis blames on the whiskey but is probably due more to the way Niall is unassuming and penetrative at the same time, and lying to him is a lot like kicking a kangaroo.

Niall clinks his shot glass against Louis’s, tipping his head back to down it before filling both again. Louis’s vision is starting to blur, his eyes burning as the whiskey goes down.

“So, you’re not at Liam’s cause Harry is there.”

It’s not a question. Louis doesn’t dignify it with a response. 

“We’re still pretending I don’t know about that, huh?” Niall sighs, switching tactics. “You can’t blame him forever, Lou.”

Louis’s not so sure about that. 

He still remembers that day, like it’s imprinted on the underside of his eyelids. Thinks about it in the back of the car on the way to the office in the morning, picks it apart as he's falling asleep on anniversaries of certain important dates, wallows in it late at night and a few pints in. The pain, the regret, the deep, useless feeling of frustration that pinches at his memories. 

And it's not that he blames himself; he does. 

And it’s not that he blames any of the other boys, specifically; he does.

It's just ... Harry left. Raised his voice, rubbed his neck, and then just folded in on himself and fucked off. Not, like, for a few minutes to cool down and find Lou for a bit of whining. Not even for an evening, to blow off some steam with strangers at the local pub, as was his pattern on particularly bad days.

No. He fucked off for- Six. Fucking. Years.

When Louis closes his eyes, he's right back to that night in Quito. Well, not the night. Louis doesn’t even remember whatever stupid shit they had been fighting about, or which of Harry’s buttons they had been pushing. 

But, the morning after. That’s not something he’ll ever forget. The way he woke with Liam perched on the edge of his bed, the way Liam’s fingertips brushed, just this side of tender, over Louis’s bare shoulder. The way Louis had still been so furious, his anger simmering along the surface of his skin, and, when he had shied away, the way Liam had looked so, so hurt. It’s still, ridiculously, the thing he feels worse about from those whole awful 24 hours.

"Sorry, I- um," Liam had tripped over his words, had looked lost and worried and so desperate to have this be just another argument. Like all the other arguments they'd been having for years. "I went to Harry's room and-"

Liam hadn't needed to say that Harry wasn't there. He rarely was, preferring to spend his evenings at the flat of whatever local he'd picked up for the night. Louis had lost count of the number of times he'd argued with Harry about paps and angry one-nighters with Twitter accounts.

Louis had wanted to check for himself, though. It was a great excuse to do some yelling, on the off chance Harry had already completed his ritual walk of shame. He hadn’t. His room was empty, the bed untouched. In his anger, Louis had barely noticed that Harry’s small leather duffle was gone, as were his second-favorite pair of jeans, his best hat, and a handful of shirts. 

It was Paul who told them in the end. When he found them at breakfast, packing away eggs and beans and toast and trying to get over the anger they were all still harboring towards each other from the night before. But Paul's face- Louis will never forget it, never forget the sinking feeling he felt, knowing, instantaneously, that this time was different. 

"Harry left."

"Oh." Liam had pushed his plate away. "Well, we just have the two shows left to do in Australia. We can reschedule them. Come back in a few weeks. Maybe tack them on to the beginning of the next tour. That'll be easiest, surely."

Zayn had laid a hand on Liam's knee to quiet him. And Louis had stared, for a long time, at Zayn's hand, shaking and tanned, tugging at the light blue nylon of Liam's joggers.

Niall had been the one to clear his throat, bending his leg against the table and resting his chin on his knee. "He's gone, yeah? For good?" 

Paul had just nodded. "Redeye to Ghana. I drove him to the airport myself."

"Maybe he just needs a holiday." Zayn's voice had trembled more than Louis’d ever heard it before, more than Louis’s heard it since. Not that Louis really recognized it at the time.

Paul had shaken his head, sadness in every motion. "He's going indefinitely. Asked me not to tell you until this morning, so you couldn't talk him out of it."

"Well, that was a foolish hope." Louis remembers spitting out, already halfway out of his chair, frustration and betrayal coursing through all the sane, even-tempered parts of him.

"We can't follow him." Niall had sounded sad but sure, and, honestly, Louis still doesn't know how he spent so many years underestimating Niall. He never did it again, after that morning. "Come on, lads. You know how miserable he's been."

Except, well, Louis hadn't known. Not really. He'd figured Harry was a little homesick, like they all were; sick of living out of his suitcase, like they all were; and definitely done with management, but, take a number on that one. 

Louis’s never asked, but he's always wondered how Niall knew and he hadn’t, wondered if Louis had been so wrapped up in his own self-righteousness back then that he hadn’t noticed how much trouble Harry was in, or, well, "Did Harry talk to you? Before he left for Ghana?"

Niall puts his chin in his hand, leaning against the bar and turning his blurry eyes to look at Louis. "Like, that night? No. I would have told you."

Which is nice to hear. It makes him feel a little better, actually, just knowing that Niall, at least, hadn't given up on him. Not before that night, at least. Doesn’t really answer the question, though. "In the months leading up to it?"

"Yeah." Niall shrugs, downing his shot and pouring another. "I'd go out with him, sometimes, and, well, you read the book. You know what he was going through, mostly."

"Yeah, but, you were there." _Tell me it's not as bad as all that, tell me there's another perspective_ , Louis wants to beg. 

"So were you." Niall raises an eyebrow, more judgmental and more angry than Louis has seen him in years. 

Harry brings it out in all of them, he figures. Besides, Louis deserves it, the eyebrows and probably a lot worse. 

"I wasn't, though, not really," he admits, and Niall's face softens.

"It wasn't about you." Niall reaches forward, resting his hand over Louis’s, and it helps, a little, even though Louis is pretty sure he’ll never quite believe that it wasn’t his fault for pushing Harry away. "It wasn't about any of us. He was just- so tired."

"We all were."

"Yeah, but," Niall shrugs, "it was different for Harry."

And that, right there, has always pissed Louis off. Harry might be different – was different, whatever – but he was still part of the group, one of five, and Louis knows they all had issues, deep, dark, pressing issues. But they – Louis, Liam, Zayn, Niall - they hid them or dealt with them or pushed them away. Harry’s- Harry’s issues broke them. All five of them. Forever.

Louis is still angry at Harry for that. It’s been simmering, under his skin, for six years, but he didn’t know the force of it. Not until the book drew it out of him, every ugly, bruised, barbed bit of it.

"Not _so_ different," he pushes.

"That's not fair, Lou."

"He broke us up, Niall."

Niall's face screws up and he pulls away, grabbing straight for the bottle and swallowing what must be at least two shots worth in one go. "We broke us up. We were all there. We were all tired, we were all done. If he hadn't left, I might have."

"You wouldn't." Louis scoffs. Niall loved - loves - One Direction more than anyone.

"Well, no, I wouldn't have. But, I wasn't happy." Niall frowns at the bottle of Jack before waving at the bartender for a Guinness. The bartender slides it down the bar to him, and he catches it, not looking up from where his finger traces the rim, as he continues. "And, I might have, sorta?, encouraged him to leave."

"What?" Louis asks, loud enough for half the bar to turn their way.

Louis doesn't care. His world has just been turned upside down. Again. Louis would really appreciate it if that would stop happening.

Niall drops his head, rubbing at his neck, and Louis drops his head, too, to hear him. "The things he was saying, Lou, if you had heard them- He needed a break, a proper break, away from us and the music and, when he mentioned Ghana, he sounded so happy and engaged, and I hadn't heard him like that in so long, so," Niall shrugs, "I encouraged him to go."

Which really, really fucking hurts to hear but, also, makes a lot of sense now that Louis thinks about it. Niall had handled the break-up so well. He had sent off a ‘thank you for all the support over the years !!!! 1D will never stop loving you and being so so grateful for everything you've done :D’ tweet, spent a few weeks visiting family and friends, and then had headed directly into the studios to start his solo career.

Louis, in contrast, had spent six months in Jamaica, burning his skin and getting so wasted that he doesn't remember much beyond sunburns and bland hotel walls and clubs that opened onto the beach. He had turned his phone off, too, and hadn't talked to anyone except the sporadic email or two to Lottie on the rare occasions he remembered his email password. 

He hadn't even really missed the boys, or, had thought he wasn’t missing them. Until he woke up one morning that was actually an afternoon to find Liam on the balcony, drinking coffee and looking rested and relaxed. Liam hadn't said much for the first week, had just laid next to Louis on the beach, covering him with an umbrella and bringing him coffee and water, while Louis slowly started the process of healing. Then, and only then, Liam had made them reservations at the resort's most expensive restaurant and had presented Louis with his business plan, complete with PowerPoint and action plans and paperwork from the lawyers.

Louis probably owes him a few more unreciprocated blowjobs for that. 

If Liam wasn't sitting at home with Harry, that is, sharing bedtime stories and Liam’s glorious, over-large, extra-firm shower.

Louis knocks back his drink as Niall shuffles on his stool, bumping knees with Louis and looking apologetic. "And it worked, yeah? Look at Haz now. The book, the album, the confidence- He's brilliant, like we always knew he could be."

"Yeah," Louis agrees, as if Louis hasn't spent the five and a half years after Jamaica building a life for himself that he loves and that he's really proud of. Maybe, perhaps, with a man who he's really proud of and could, eventually, possibly- well, he's getting there, anyway, even if he can't quite say it yet. As if Louis’s life isn't a china shop and Harry the bull, threatening to shatter all the careful, precarious pieces Louis holds so tightly together.

Louis valiantly ignores the part of his mind that reminds him that there was a time, not all that long ago, when Louis had held Harry that tightly, too. Maybe even the tightest.

"Anyway," Niall presses down on Louis’s knee. "You should finish the book. It'll help."

"I don't need help," Louis argues, on principle. 

Niall snorts, swaying, a little, as he finishes off his glass. 

Louis suspects that he's quite a bit more wasted than he's letting on and reaches down to press his palm over Niall’s hand. "Home?"

Niall nods, pausing, just a moment, before asking. "Mind if I crash at yours? Mine is farther and I'd really like a bed. Like, five minutes ago."

It's a peace offering, Niall making sure that Louis’s forgiven him. And as much as Louis wants to be mad at him, he's mad at Harry and a little mad at Liam, and he just can't be mad at Niall, too. Not for something that happened six years ago and not for being a good friend to Harry when Louis was not, could not be. In his less-than-sober moments, even Louis can admit that to himself. So, he slips under Niall's arm, leads him out to the curb, and forgives him.

He does, however, make Niall sleep on the couch, rather than in the guest room.

"Can't I just sleep with you, mate?" Niall grumbles as he accepts the pile of pillows and blankets from Louis.

"And have you boot all over my bed? Nah uh." Louis laughs all the way up the stairs.

***

"Hey."

Louis looks up to see Liam leaning in his doorway, coat on and leather bag slung over his left shoulder. End of the day, then. Louis wouldn’t know, he hasn't been paying any attention to the clock, too busy struggling to work through the massive pounding of his hangover.

"Ellie's at Sophia's tonight. Do you wanna-?"

Louis blinks. He'd like to. He’d _really_ like to. He hasn't seen Liam in what feels like weeks and he's already half hard just thinking about it. But, "can't, sorry, got plans."

"Even if I throw in dinner?"

"Like a date?" Louis smirks. 

Liam grins. "I'll even provide a movie. Whatever you want from Netflix."

"Big spender. Don't know how anyone ever turns you down."

"It's a curse, but," Liam shrugs, "I carry it humbly."

“You do at that.” Louis smiles, a little dimly. "And I would love to join you, but, I really do have plans."

Liam's face falls. "Oh."

"Not, like," _a date_ , Louis wants to say, but that's not them, not yet, maybe not ever at this rate. "Just something I've gotta do. By myself. It's not a big deal." Except, well, it feels a bit like a big deal and it seeps into Louis’s voice. Liam can clearly tell that he's lying.

Liam goes, though, without more than a quick look back at the doorstop. “Next time?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.” Louis tries to put every ounce of sincerity he has into it, and then Liam’s gone. Probably to call Zayn or Niall or- Jesus, Harry, to keep him company.

He doesn’t have time to worry about it, though. He has a mission. If missions are allowed to include mundane things like a cup of tea, his bed, and his iPad, cued up to Harry’s book.

Louis hasn’t been able to get Niall’s words out of his head. About all the things Louis’s missed along the way, the times he’s forgotten or hadn’t seen, and the things he did see but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge. And, as frustrating as it is to actually get concrete stories out of the book - Harry writes like he talks, long and winding through streams and villages and a local bakery or two – it’s his best bet.

Even as half-finished and meandering as Harry’s stories are, they are more than effective at destroying ever sense of self Louis’s been clinging to over the last couple of months. Because he’s spent years clinging to the idea that Harry had made his own bed, that he made choices and had feeling that Louis just couldn’t match; he’s been clinging to a lie. 

Louis has loved Harry since he was eighteen. Louis has loved him a bandmate, a roommate, and best mate, as the person who knows Louis better than he will ever know himself. Louis has loved Harry stupidly, recklessly, a little desperately at times. 

Somewhere along the way, though, Louis forgot what it was meant to care for someone that deeply. Love twisted with anger and guilt and the insecurities that Louis hasn’t been able to shake in thirteen years. And now, faced with the possibility of untangling all that, Louis doesn’t even know that he wants to. It’s such a part of him, these feelings of confusion and love and resentment, so foundational to the life he’s built for himself, that Louis’s not sure he would know who he is, without it all.

It scares him how Harry is fitting himself so fully and easily back into their lives and how willingly Liam and Niall and Zayn are re-arranging their lives to fit Harry in. Because Louis can’t do that, not without losing something fundamental about the man he’s become. It has always been all or nothing with Harry. No in-betweens. And Louis doesn't know if he wants to re-orbit himself around Harry. He's done that before, lost himself so completely in Harry that he couldn't tell where he ended and Harry began. It didn't end well.

As much as they rested it, they all, to some extent, defined themselves in and around Harry. He was the center for so long, and each of them had to - carefully, painstakingly - rebuild themselves after that fateful night in Quito. 

They had always said they were mates before they were bandmates - and family above all else - but saying that as teenagers was different then living it at twenty-five. It wasn’t a choice the first time, not really, not when Simon offered them the band or nothing at all. It was a choice the second time, and it took effort to relearn who they were to each other. Without One Direction, without the schedule and the management team and stylists and hairdressers and choreographers who spent more time defining their lives than they did, without- 

Without Harry.

Zayn has evolved into the quiet, thoughtful, creative teacher he always wanted to be.

Niall has redefined himself as the happy on air personality with an enviable musical IQ and has done more to single-handedly help British young talent than all the rest of them combined. 

Liam has slipped effortlessly into the strong, savvy, father role, baking Mickey Mouse pancakes for Ellie in the morning and sucking Louis into the mattress eight hours later. 

And Louis- well, Louis doesn't really know who he's become. 

He’s proud of his accomplishments, sure. Of One Mode, which has shot to the top of the ‘Small Companies to Watch in 2024’ Fortune Magazine list after just a few short years. He's also pretty fucking happy with the changes he made right after the band broke up, the things Modest! hadn't approved of that Louis still cared deeply about. Namely, the majority stake he immediately bought in the Rovers, his quiet and respectful break-up with Eleanor, and the number of men he's allowed himself to care for over the last few years. Liam sitting, whether he knows it or not, at the top of that list. 

Its just- Those are all things. Accomplishments. They’re manifestations of the changes he’s made, but they’re not integral parts of him. So no matter how nice they are, and how fulfilled they make him, Louis still feels like he's missing something. He had thought that thing was maybe - probably - Liam. Still thinks that. 

It's all just so fucking complicated now. 

Louis has, as loathe as he is, to admit that he hasn’t been nearly as free as he’d thought he was. Because Louis has still been defining himself by Harry's absence, as fully and inextricably as he used to define himself by Harry's presence. And this book and Harry's return and everything else this fall, it's all forcing Louis to find a Louis separate from Louis-and-Harry or Louis-without-Harry for the first time since he was eighteen. 

And it terrifies him.

He rolls over, resting his iPad on the bedside table and flicking out the light. He can finish the book in the morning, when he's a little more prepared to process all these thoughts. 

He picks up his phone, fingers hesitating over Liam's name. He wants to type out 'good night' or 'I missed u tonight' or something, anything, to remind Liam that Louis’s here, in his bed, missing him. But, Louis’s feeling off-kilter, and gravitating towards Liam's steady, sure, settled presence is a luxury he shouldn't be granting himself. 

He falls asleep still debating it, his phone falling from his fingers to slip under his pillow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [These](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/post/105382604908/akan-symbols-from-ghana-these-are-the-tattoos) are the Akan symbols Harry has tattooed on his arm. They're described in the first couple scenes of this part, but, pictures are always helpful.

Louis’s not sure finishing the book was, in Niall’s terms, "helpful." It was confusing. Disorienting, maybe. Hauntingly beautiful. Disconcerting, perhaps.

Helpful? Not really.

Louis can't even untangle his thoughts, especially not with Harry here, standing in front of Louis's desk, hands pushed into his pockets and eyes gleaming with- well, Louis doesn’t really know why he’s looking so proud of himself. 

Louis’s been a little distracted, re-arranging everything he’s been thinking and feeling these past six years, adjusting to the Harry portrayed in his book. And then adjusting both those images to this Harry standing here, all long hair and spiritual tattoos and still wearing that damn sheer shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Keeping track of Harry's low, rumbling, disjointed words is, Louis thinks, a little much to ask.

"Hmm, sorry?"

Harry smirks, the corner of his mouth lifting to his left dimple. His face looks lopsided and Louis starts tilting his head to make sense of it, before he can stop himself. "The third track on the album."

Louis glances down at his iPad, where his assistant has pulled up the proposed track list for Harry’s album. Thank god for Juliana; he makes a note to get her an extra special holiday gift. "‘Jungle Fever,’ right?"

"Yeah." Harry nods. "It’s- so, it’s one of the first songs I wrote. When I was in Ghana."

"There aren’t any jungles in Ghana."

"No." Harry says, slowly, then shrugs. "‘Jungle Fever’ sounded better than ‘Serengeti Rash.’"

"I don’t know, it’s got a nice ring to it."

"I-" Harry’s phone rings, an old Michael Jackson tune, and he holds up his finger. "Sorry, I’ve just gotta-" And turns away. "Hello? . . . No, no, Gem, of course not . . . I promised I’d be there. I’ll be there . . . You’re not bothering- come on, Gem, that’s not, like- . . . Yeah, yeah, okay. Fifth and- . . . Right, okay. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in ten. Promise."

"Problem?" Louis asks, his chest fluttering a little in concern, not helped at all when Harry turns to face him, his fingers tangled in his hair and his cheeks flushed.

"Yeah, I, ah, that was Gemma. I promised I’d go to her next ultrasound but I-" He shrugs, sheepishly. "I need to get a personal assistant, again. I’m shit at remembering schedules. Can we talk in the car?"

Louis freezes. "What? No, no, you go. I’ll, ahh, catch you later."

Harry pouts, catching his bottom lip with his teeth, and, fuck that, that’s totally playing dirty. "Lou-"

"Harry." Louis crosses his arms, pulling out his bottom lip and pouting right along with him.

Harry laughs, his whole body loosening as he heads to the door. And Louis figures that’s it. Battle won.

Except, this isn’t the same Harry he used to know, and Louis really needs to keep remembering that. This Harry crosses to the coat rack, picks out the most fashionable of the options, and tosses it in Louis’s direction. After making sure there are gloves and a beanie in the pocket. "Come on. We don’t wanna be even later than we are. Gemma’s horrid when she’s angry."

Harry’s already out the door before Louis’s formulated a rebuttal. And, when he gets up to follow – with every intention of telling Harry off – Harry’s leaning against Juliana’s desk, speaking low and slow, flashing his dimples and his charm and Louis knows he’s fucked the minute Juliana sees him, her face flushed and pleased.

"The rest of your day is clear, so, have fun." She winks, actually winks, and Louis is pretty close to throttling Harry, if he wasn’t also so impressed. Juliana isn't easily charmed, would make a shitty barrier between him and clients if she was.

"Thanks." Giving up the fight, Louis slips into his coat and pulls on the beanie. "Send my calls through to my cell and I’ll be back this afternoon."

"Ah huh." She nods, as if she doesn’t believe him, before the phone rings. "Good morning, you’ve reached One Mode Productions. This is Mr. Tomlinson’s office," she covers the speaker and mouths ‘go’ at them.

"You know," Louis starts, as they’re piling into the cab, Harry spreading his long legs so their knees bang together in the backseat. "You can’t order me around anymore. I’m the CEO of a major company."

"And I haven’t told you yet how proud I am of you." Harry reaches over, all sincerity, and covers Louis’s hand with his leather glove. Louis’s fingers are cold, or he’d complain. "What you and Liam have done- It’s amazing, really."

"And you, too," Louis’s saying, before his mind – full of Harry’s book, the way he wrote about sunsets in Ghana and months of extended silences in Japan, the way he described building houses with his bare hands and growing his own vegetables, hours spent on his knees in the dirt and the mud – catches up to his mouth. "What you did, in Ghana. And Japan, it- you were doing stuff that really fucking matters."

Harry looks away, out the window at the city of London passing by. Their home; the home they made, together, as a band. "Felt like it at the time." Harry doesn’t move his hand.

The taxi lurches to a stop at the curb, and Harry pulls out a pocket-full of bills that he hands over before pushing Louis out and leading the way into the building. It’s a small office, and Louis assumes Harry’s been footing the bill for the clean, comfortable, safe private practice, as the receptionist greets them with a smile and an eye roll.

"Room 6. Miss Gemma is waiting for you, quite impatiently."

"Thank you, Sandy." Harry clasps his hands together in a little bow, and Louis barely has time to wonder how often Harry’s been here before he’s being dragged down the hallway and into an exam room. 

Gemma's already strapped into the examination table, covered with a flimsy, sea green paper gown. "Finally. If you hadn’t gotten here in five minutes I was gonna sic mom on you." Her arms are crossed, her eyes spitting at Harry, and Louis shifts to the side, shielding his eyes with his hand.

"Sorry, sis." Harry presses a kiss to her forehead and she sighs, loosening her shoulders, her eyes slipping past him.

"You brought back-up."

Harry shrugs. "Was worried I’d need it."

Louis just says, "Sorry." Which, at least, breaks the tension, as Gemma rolls her eyes and laughs at Louis's squeamishness.

"Isn’t Jay a midwife? Also, you’ve seen all this before," she waves down at her body.

Louis coughs. "Excuse a lad for doing the respectable thing and not looking. Or mentioning that night. Ever."

"I, for one, am happy I got an, albeit brief, look at what Haz used to talk up so highly." She grins, patting Harry’s arm as he chokes and his face goes red, all the way from his ears to that one button he has done at his waistline.

Louis grins, taking a seat on the examination table by Gemma’s knees, letting his hand rest on her knee and letting this feel like it used to. Just him, Harry, and Gemma, the three of them against the world, with boxed wine and their unrefined voices their only weapons. Before they slew the globe with perfectly manicured curls and promo songs and voluntary closeting. Before they even knew what those things were.

It’s intoxicating, being back there, mentally if not really physically. And Louis allows himself to wallow in it, like quicksand, until he forgets that it isn’t real. That it’s not normal to reach out and push a curl behind Harry’s ear, just because he can. That it shouldn’t be second nature to sit so close to Harry as to be on top of him, to press their thighs together and talk, loud and obnoxious, in his ear. That Harry isn’t his, that Harry doesn’t have to listen to him, touch him, want him. Not anymore. Never did, if Louis’s really honest with himself.

For his part, though, Harry meets him step for step. When the doctor hands them the ultrasound picture, Harry leans his head against Louis’s, both of them mesmerized by the black and white outline of the next Styles. As they head back to the office, Harry watches the hand Louis places between them in the cab, and if he doesn’t quite thread their fingers together, he does press his palm, sweaty and clammy and still twice the size, to Louis’s. And when they head directly to the most remote studio, in the basement corner where they can be loud and ignore the passing hours, Harry sits indian style on the couch, knee resting on Louis’s thigh, with a guitar perched in his lap.

"Can I play it for you?" Harry asks, quietly, his fingers already finding chords Louis’s never heard before.

"What?"

"‘Jungle Fever’?"

Harry looks nervous, wiping his right hand on his jeans before pulling a pick from his pocket, and Louis knows this is dangerous, knows it before Harry even starts, but he nods. "Sure." His voice is rough around the edges and Harry looks at him, their eyes connecting for one, affirming moment, before he drops his chin to look at the guitar.

It’s different than the duet he’s doing with Niall. Where that song is built around who Harry is now - Japan and Ghana and Southern California weaving together to build a strong melody about inner strength and acceptance – "Jungle Fever" is anything but strong or steady or poised. It’s a ballad, sung in Harry’s gravelly, unhurried voice, but with a frantic undercurrent running through it, supporting it, rushing it forward to its eventual chaotic collision. 

It’s a song about being unmoored, about questioning everyone and everything, and it feels like running away. It feels like heartbreak.

Too late, Louis remembers back to hours ago, when Harry stood in his office, six years older than he seems right now, and told Louis that this was the first song he wrote when he got to Ghana.

When Harry finishes, trailing off on the last note and looking up at Louis through his eyelashes, Louis’s eyes are a little wet and he has to clear his throat before he whispers, "Play it again?"

Harry smiles down at his knees, the corners of his eyes crinkling and flushed and, maybe, just maybe, a little wet, too. 

He picks up the opening chords again and, this time, he looks at Louis as he sings, and Louis tries to hear it as a producer, tries to pick out chords and key changes and lyrical flow, but it’s hard. The song wants to drag him under, and Louis wants to let it.

When Harry finishes, he puts his guitar aside and turns, so that both his knees are resting on Louis’s thigh. Louis lets out a watery chuckle, setting his elbow on Harry’s knee without thinking about it. "‘Jungle Fever’ isn’t a very fitting name."

Harry ducks his head, and his voice is so low that Louis has to lean forward to hear him. "I want you to sing it with me."

"What?" Louis’s louder than he means to be, and Harry jerks back, his body straightening, instantly putting the inches between them that Louis hates. Louis holds up a hand, rushing to backtrack. "No, no, just- this song is so personal."

"Not just to me."

Louis swallows, for the umpteenth time. He feels like his throat isn’t pulling it’s own weight here. "It's not just about me, either. You should ask Liam. Or, Zayn. Zayn’s ad libs would sound ace on that chorus."

"If I wanted Zayn, I’d have asked Zayn." Harry’s voice is edged in something Louis can’t quite place, but it’s familiar. It’s the same tone he’d had for the last three or so years of the band, when he’d been walking away without any of them realizing it. And Louis- Louis can’t go through that again. Not now that they’re just getting here, to this settled place between them.

"Okay."

"Yeah?"

Louis nods. "Yeah, yeah, I can-" Louis laughs, a little franticly. "I’ve never done a duet. Don’t have the voice for it."

"You always underestimated your tone." But Harry’s smiling a little wryly, more frustration than anything harder, and Louis nods, standing and wiping his hands on his thighs. "Where are you-?" Harry stops when Louis moves over to the piano, straddling the seat and flexing his fingers. "Oh."

"This alright?" Louis ducks his head. "I thought, with the guitar, it would be nice. Acoustic, you know?"

Harry nods, picking up his guitar again and perching himself on a stool next to the piano. Louis listens closely, fitting the piano melody in and around Harry’s guitar, as he slips his voice over Harry’s. It takes hours as Louis tiptoes into it, knocking lightly and unobtrusively at the door of Harry’s psyche. 

By the end, though, he’s belting out the words right with Harry, his fingers playing the bulk of the chorus under both their voices, until both their hands are blistered and aching and Louis feels drunk on music in a way he hasn’t in years. 

"Can I ask a question? About the lyrics?" He asks, slowly, when they take a break for water and breath.

"You can ask anything."

"Okay." Louis frowns, not sure how to. Because the rest of the song, Louis gets it, he feels it, knows that it’s his story as much as it is Harry’s. But the last verse, that’s all Harry and, even after reading his book, Louis doesn’t quite- "‘black and white fades to green in the memory of our parting, but you’re already inked onto my soul and what’s the use of stalling.’"

Harry looks at him for a long moment, before he settles on the piano bench next to Louis and pulls up the sleeve of his right arm and holds it out. Louis’s spent a lot of time looking at Harry’s new tattoo sleeve from afar, but it’s different up-close. Intricate and sparsely colored and powerful. It’s beautiful and Louis almost wants to cover up the mishmash that still graces the inside of his right arm, even though he loves each and every piece of that random assortment.

Harry points to a series running down his upper arm, five large, elaborate designs in a vertical line, starting at his shoulder and ending at his elbow. The dark green ink has faded a little, compared to the tattoos around them, but they’re still the largest and the most obvious. 

"These are the first tats I got in Ghana. Like, a week after I got there. I didn’t- they were done by a medicine man, which is why they’ve faded a bit; I should probably go back, have him touch them up. His name is Kplorm, which means ‘guide.’ He was my first friend in Ghana, took me in, when I was pretty desperate."

Louis swallows. Harry was running from them, he needed an escape from them, someone to take him in who wasn’t his bandmates or his makeup artist or his manager.

"This top one," Harry points at the top tattoo. It’s dark, an oval, aligned horizontally, with twelve dark spokes of varying length and width, circling out from the center. "It means peace and harmony to the Akan people. This one’s for Zayn."

Louis sucks in a breath, louder than he means to, but Harry just smiles at him, tapping the second one. It’s two long ovals, connected by a darker, thicker line at the center, binding the circles together. "This one’s Niall. It’s a spiritual symbol, but it’s a reminder to be optimistic and positive-minded."

"There’s a symbol for that?" Louis laughs. "That’s perfect."

"Thought so." Harry moves to the next one. It’s beautifully simplistic. Thick, dark lines creating an unbroken border, all lines and angles where the others are curves and spaces. Louis is instantly drawn to it and, without thinking, he reaches out to run his finger along the negative space in the center.

"Is this one me?"

Harry shakes his head, and Louis tries not to be disappointed as Harry’s voice drops. "It’s Liam." And, well, that fits, really. It looks exactly like Liam, which is probably why Louis is drawn to it, probably why Harry was drawn to it in the beginning. "Means safety, solidarity, protection."

Louis pulls his hand back before Harry can feel how hard he’s shaking. He knows he doesn’t have any right to be upset about that. These tattoos were done just weeks after Harry left, and if Louis was, at some point, Harry’s home, he relinquished that title long, long before Harry finally fled. 

Still, he blinks his eyes against the thick quiet that’s descended upon them. "That’s beautiful, Harry."

"Ask me about the next one," Harry whispers.

Despite himself, Louis’s eyes go to where Harry’s tracing the fourth one. It’s also simple, three concentric ovals, a little longer than they are wide. "Mine?"

Harry nods. "Leadership." His voice is low, steady, as if he’s thought through these so many times that he knows them, knows the power of their meanings as easy as breathing. Louis pictures Harry lying awake in Ghana, angry and sad and so alone, tracing these tattoos long into the night. It's devastating. 

Harry catches Louis’s hand, pulling his fingers up to trace the circles. "This is the strongest of all Adinkra symbols. It inspires all the other symbols."

Louis blinks franticly, his fingers shaking in Harry’s, his palm sweaty and his knees pressing into Harry’s thigh where they’re still locked together on the bench. It’s so much, all at once, and he drops his fingers to the last one before he drowns under the weight of it.

The last one feels a little different from the rest. It’s the most complex, but also the most recognizable, in the shape of a, "turtle?"

"Crocodile."

Louis tilts his head, tracing the tale and the round body and the three vertical lines cutting through it. "There’s only four of us. Who is this?"

"Me," Harry breathes.

And, "oh." Louis’s heart clenches. While Liam has four chevrons, symbolizing how important his bandmates are to him, how integral they are to his being, of course Harry has inked five, has inked himself alongside the four of them. Harry needs the reminder, needs to see how they work in consort, all five of them. Even after so many years pushing them away and trying to find himself without them, he isn't himself, isn't Harry, without his place among them. 

It’s a little overwhelming, knowing that Harry recognized this, that he inked this reminder into his skin just weeks after leaving them all. Knowing that Harry knew all of this, and left them anyway. 

Louis murmurs the line under his breath, "black and white fades to green in the memory of our parting, but you’re already inked onto my soul and what’s the use of stalling," and it slots into place.

"Adaptability," Harry murmurs, when Louis’s done singing. "The crocodile is a symbol of adapting when circumstances are difficult, or beyond our control."

Louis lets out a whine, high in his throat, and Harry shifts on the bench. He lets his shirtsleeve fall, covering Zayn’s tattoo, even as Harry spreads his hand, massaging his upper arm absently.

"Lou, I- I couldn’t stay," Harry whispers. "I was losing myself."

"You lost us."

"I know."

"And we lost you."

"I know. I’m, ahh, trying to change that, now." He laughs, a little self-deprecating thing that settles under Louis’s skin. "Not doing such a great job so far, but-"

Louis’s moving before he’s made a decision to, spurred on by the itch under his skin and the way Harry’s voice has, finally, started to waiver. He bends his head, wrapping his fingers under Harry’s elbow and pulling it up, towards him, so that he can press gentle, close-mouthed kisses at the center of each of the symbols. Zayn’s, Niall’s, Liam’s, before lingering on his and Harry’s, lips dragging across Harry’s skin, weathered and tanned and not at all how Louis thought it would taste, on those nights he’d lie awake at eighteen, and twenty, and again at twenty-three, wondering what Harry would feel like under his mouth and his hands and his body. 

Harry freezes, a deep, shaky breath shuddering out of him, but he doesn’t pull his arm away. His arm is trembling, as if Louis’s fingers are the only thing holding it up, and when Louis finally releases him, Harry drops his hands to grasp at Louis’s hips, pulling him up and towards him. Louis goes, tipping his head automatically to accept Harry’s kiss, his body slotting between Harry’s thighs like he’s meant to be there, comfortable and settled, in the v of Harry’s legs.

Harry leans back against the piano, the keys tinkling off-key, and Harry chuckles, reaching behind himself to close the cover, before lifting himself slightly to sit on it. With his new leverage, Harry accepts Louis’s body weight, and Louis feels surrounded, Harry’s arms and his thighs and his mouth, like a physical manifestation of all that time Harry’s spent in his mind.

"Fuck," Harry murmurs, biting at Louis’s lower lip, dull and gentled, as he slips his hands under Louis’s shirt to tug at the bare skin of his hips and lower back. "Louis, I- you feel better than I ever imagined."

"You imagined?" Louis asks in too few syllables, but he’s focused on Harry’s neck, trailing his tongue across the shell of Harry’s ear and kissing at the soft, sensitive skin behind. Harry moans, his knees going weak, sliding a little further onto the piano, the new angle pressing the hard line of his cock against the inside of Louis’s thigh.

Louis grins into Harry’s collarbone, just over the ‘1969’ tattoo. He twists his thigh, pressing between Harry’s legs and rubbing.

Harry groans, slitting his eyes open, reaching one of his hands around to open the button on Louis’s trousers, just enough to loosen the waistband slightly. He slides his hand back, slipping both of them under Louis’s boxers, squeezing against the bare skin of Louis’s ass, reverent and practiced and so easy. 

"Don’t be an idiot," Harry bites into Louis’s collarbone.

"’m not," Louis argues, even as Harry squeezes his hands under Louis’s ass, using his leverage to pull Louis up and closer, a better angle to thrust against.

Harry’s rhythm is labored, his muscles working hard to thrust from his half-sitting position, and Louis reaches between them to rub against the line of Harry’s dick. Harry arches into it, his voice rough and broken as he grasps at the threads of their conversation. "Liar," he gets out, riding over a deep groan.

"Hmm." Louis wraps his fingers around Harry, pumping him through two layers of fabric.

"I used to," Harry grunts, his words staccato and rough, in rhythm with the thrusts of his hips into Louis’s palm, "get off to you, all the time, on the bus."

Louis grins, twisting his wrist on the upstroke. "I know." Because he does. Louis’d lost count of the number of times he drifted off to sleep to the wet sounds of Harry’s fist around his dick and the low sounds of Louis’s name on Harry’s tongue, hidden by the thin curtains of their bunks and years of denial.

"Louis, please," Harry whines, and Louis isn’t sure if it’s a response to Louis’s words or his hands, but Louis figures undoing Harry’s belt and slipping his hand inside is a good enough response to either. 

Harry’s already hot and wet, leaking down Louis’s fingers and jumping to meet him. Louis wishes he could see Harry, but his hand gets stuck trying to push Harry’s pants and trousers down his thighs, and Harry is pressing Louis so close that there’s isn’t enough room for Louis to manage it. So, instead, he pushes back Harry’s foreskin, dragging his fingers across the soft, unprotected head, gathering up Harry’s precome and coating his palm before wrapping his fingers around Harry’s dick.

"Shit, Louis, yeah- god, yes, keep- so good," Harry lets out, a gruff stream of profanity and encouragement, tipping his head forward and breathing it into Louis’s shoulder. His body is sweating and tense, so close to the edge already, thirteen years of anticipation rolled into this moment. Louis would be disappointed that it’s over so quickly, if he could think past the way Harry looks, head thrown back, eyes slitted and dark, his whole body rippling in waves of tension and release.

Louis’s dick twitches, so hard his vision’s going hazy around the edges, his thoughts narrowed to the tug of Harry’s hands on his ass and the pull of Harry’s body, strong and hard in front of him. He manages to push his pants down with his clean hands, just far enough so that the waistband folds below his balls, opening a v of open air and skin and Louis rocks forward, his dick dragging against the cotton of Harry’s black boxers.

The fabric is rough and dry, but Louis’s frantic with it, burying his face in Harry’s neck as he arches his hips, fucking up and forward so he’s humping arrhythmically between Harry’s legs. Harry’s breath is harsh against Louis’s ear, his legs tense like he’s a little too soft and sensitive still for the stimulation of Louis’s thrusts against him, but he doesn’t ask Louis to slow down or ease up.

"Yeah, come one," Harry urges, instead, turning his head to kiss at Louis’s ear. Circulation must have returned to his fingers, too, because he tightens his grip around Louis’s ass, slipping his hands under him, pressed tight and warm between Louis’s skin and his boxers. He uses his leverage to pull Louis forward, urging a harsh, punishing rhythm that Louis settles into a little too desperately.

Louis doesn’t know how long he lasts, but he’s pretty sure it’s an embarrassingly short time before his thighs are tensing, his balls drawing up tight, and he’s coming across the dark fabric of Harry’s boxers and the tanned skin under Harry’s laurel tattoos. Louis feels shaky, like his orgasm was ripped from him, leaving him empty and unable to hold his own weight, and he’s pretty sure he’d sink to the floor if Harry wasn’t still holding him up.

"Oh god." Louis closes his eyes against Harry’s collarbone, his body still shaking and coming down, as the room filters back in and Louis remembers where they are. In the studio, at One Mode Productions, the company he’s built from the ground up, that he loves and he’s proud of and lives for. "I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have-" 

Harry shuffles, stretching his legs out and glancing down, a small smile on his face as he shifts his hips and zips his pants over the remnants of Louis’s release. Louis is still tingling and sensitive, but his dick gives a valiant twist at the sight. Louis ignores it, forcing himself into his boxers and doing up his own clothes.

"Probably not," Harry finally admits, but leans forward to kiss Louis anyway, slow and sensual and everything Louis only ever lets himself have post-orgasm. "I don’t regret it, though."

Louis, honestly, doesn’t have a response for that. Regret is something he’s all too good at, and, while this should be another thing on the long list he keeps running in the back of his mind, it doesn’t feel like it. 

***

Louis doesn’t sleep. He spends the night re-reading Harry’s book, fitting Harry’s tattoos and the feel of his skin in alongside his written words. And, finally, finally, Louis gets it. His own mistakes click into place alongside Harry’s, and Louis finally sees it, the whole picture of the last thirteen years laid out before his eyes with the clarity of a Monet.

"I understand," Louis says, without preamble, when Liam finally arrives at the office at half-past-six the next morning. Louis's been straining his ears for the rustle of Liam's arrival for what feels like hours, hopped up on espresso and nerves and hindsight.

"Understand what?" Liam asks, absently, already booting up his computer and reading through the post-it notes his secretary’s left on his keyboard.

"Why we broke up. The band." Louis closes the glass door to Liam’s office, leaning his back against it. "You’ve seen it all along, haven’t you? You and Niall and Zayn?"

Liam shrugs. "Wasn’t that complicated."

"Was for me," Louis murmurs, and Liam looks up, three post-it-notes still stuck to his fingers.

"Lou, what-?"

"I slept with Harry." He’s buzzing with it, his skin alive and tingling, and it bursts out, quick, before he can think of a better way of saying it.

"Ten years ago or-?" Liam isn’t moving. He's just standing in front of his desk, coat still on and those damn yellow and pink post-its stuck to the ends of his fingers.

"Yesterday." Louis can’t look away. And it’s not that he’s done anything wrong, really. He and Liam were never exclusive and, well, it wouldn’t surprise him if Harry and Liam have been sharing a blowjob or two here and there. Liam isn’t moving, though, and that feels all sorts of wrong. Louis swallows. "Last night."

"Oh." Liam catches his bottom lip between his teeth and Louis can’t read him. It’s suddenly like they’re back in the X-Factor house, when Louis couldn’t understand anything Liam did and Liam spent more time glowering and being confused by Louis than he did singing. 

It hurts a little, because Louis knows Liam now. Better, almost, than he knows himself anymore, but it's been a long, treacherous, cobbled road to get here. Understanding Liam is the hardest thing he’s ever worked for, and Louis counts it among his proudest successes. To not understand Liam now, when Louis needs it the most- 

"Okay," he says, slowly.

"Okay," Liam shrugs. "We never defined this, Lou." He motions between them. "So, don’t, like- nothing has to change. It’s not a big deal."

It feels like a big deal.

"Okay." Louis nods, watching Liam for another moment, before he opens the door and slips out.

***

Things do change. 

Louis isn't sure if it's him, or if it's Liam, or if it's the Harry-shaped hole still living and breathing around the One Mode Studios.

Either way, things change. Not at work, where they're still civil – friendly, even – still laughing together over Chipotle and failed auditions and pushing each other's buttons about new acts. It is suddenly tentative, though, slow and complicated, and Louis can barely see himself through the murkiness of it.

Louis hadn't realized how important Liam's unwavering support was to him until it started to wobble.

Louis hadn't realized how much he'd miss the sex, too. Definitely hadn't thought that one through. And now, two weeks into his self-imposed celibacy, he's feeling a little hard up and frustrated.

"I’m horny," he starts with, when he's only halfway into the bar, reaching over Zayn’s shoulder to steal his shot glass.

"Good evening," Zayn prompts, sarcasm dripping from his eyebrows, and Louis just shrugs.

"Not so good," Louis points out.

"Mmm." Zayn reaches down to pat Louis’s dick and Louis dances out of reach, swiveling his hips before climbing onto the bar stool next to Zayn’s. "Mine is just fine, thanks."

"Ugh. I want better friends."

"Probably should stop pushing them away, then." Zayn says it half-teasingly, but Louis's mind is a bit frozen on the other half.

If Harry's book has taught him anything, it's that Louis has been pushing them – Harry, definitely; Liam, Zayn, and Niall, probably – away for a lot longer than Harry has been. It doesn't really matter that Louis did it out of self-preservation, out of every thing he'd ever heard about what it takes for a poor boy from Donnie to make it big time- it manifested itself in thick, strong barriers meant to keep even himself out.

He's a fucking hypocrite, but, at least he's ready to own it now. At least after a few whiskey sours he is. 

"I don’t- Fuck. I don’t mean to fuck things up," Louis finally says, with a deep sigh into his glass. "I just miss him."

"Who?"

"Liam." Louis pauses, trying to think through the haze that has settled over his mind, where the barriers used to be. "Harry. I don’t know."

Zayn chuckles, reaching over to pat Louis’s hand. "Might wanna do a little more thinking and a little less drinking."

Louis frowns, because he has done a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking about how deeply he’s hurt Liam. Louis knows just how blindly Liam trusts, and just how many times that’s backfired. It's been years since Louis has been on the list on the list of people who've hurt Liam. He had promised himself, a long time ago, he’d never be on it again. Promised himself, when he’d finally sat down to share a beer and his soul with Liam in those first few days of real recording for Up All Night. A promised he re-iterated a few months ago, the night he first unbuttoned Liam’s trousers and kissed him through his best orgasm in years.

Louis’s also done a lot of thinking about those weeks in the X-Factor house, about how he kissed Harry and then promised himself he wouldn’t anymore. About how he took everything he was feeling, everything that was natural and explosive between them, and locked it away, out of reach, over and over again throughout the years. And yet, even after all this time, even after Louis shut it down with vitriol and spit, that spark is still there, built into Harry’s voice and the songs he writes and the dimples that still turn Louis's resolve to mush.

It seems like Louis’s been breaking a lot of promises lately. 

"I can’t, like, choose." Louis frowns. "That would mean-" Choosing Liam would mean losing Harry, and even that thought makes his chest seize and his breath come quicker and more difficult. But choosing Harry would mean losing Liam, and- that thought is unbearable.

"Then don’t choose."

Louis turns to look at Zayn, and his head feels woozy and full. "And go home alone?"

Zayn shrugs, biting his lip in that way he does whenever he’s holding back something really important. "Maybe not."

"I don’t-"

"Just think about it." Zayn squeezes Louis’s hand, his eyes warm and pitying, as he grabs for his coat. "I’m heading home, got a lot of work tomorrow. You’ll get home okay?"

Louis nods, watching Zayn walk away before he finishes up his glass, pays his tab, and shrugs into his own coat. Outside, he pulls out his phone, meaning to call a cab, but catching over Liam’s name, before thumbing to Harry’s.

"Lou?" Harry's voice is low and gravelly.

"Harry, Harry, love of my life."

"Have you been drinking?"

Louis leans against the brick wall of the bar, picking at the crumbling bits with the cracking nail of his index finger. "Maybe."

"Is someone with you?"

"You could be."

Harry sighs. "I was asleep."

"Mmm." Louis closes his eyes, picturing Harry sleep-mussed, probably only wearing his pants, every one of his tattoos tanned and visible. "That’s why you sound so sultry."

"Um." Harry pauses, reluctance thrumming down the phone line, and Louis stands a bit straighter. "I didn’t want to wake Liam or Ellie."

And that- well, that fucking hurts. Not, not because Harry’s with Liam – Louis’s kind of assumed that for weeks now – but, because Harry is at Liam’s house, with Ellie sleeping in the next room. And Louis- Louis had his whatever-it-was with Liam for months and he never, ever, slept over on nights when Liam had Ellie. Not once. "Oh."

"Yeah, I-"

"My, ahh, my cab’s here. Sorry I woke you," Louis says, quickly, just barely able to end the call before he has to dig his fingers into his pockets to stop their shaking.

***

Liam’s waiting for him the next morning, lounging against Juliana’s desk with a large Starbucks cup in his hand. It’s only mid-October, but the cup is red and white and covered in stars and Christmas trees and something that loosely resembles a fugal horn.

"Morning." Liam holds out the cup, and Louis’s too hung over not to take it. "Thought you could use it, from what Harry said about your late night call."

Louis takes a sip. Peppermint, his favorite. "I can handle a little hangover."

Liam shrugs, waving to Juliana and following Louis into his office. He doesn’t close the door behind them. "Lou, we didn’t- He slept in the guest room."

Louis tries very hard to shrug nonchalantly. "Wouldn’t be a problem if you did."

"Lou-"

"It’s cool, really." Louis looks away to boot up his computer, burying his lips in his coffee cup so that Liam can’t read the crinkles around his fake smile. "I don’t have a hold on you. Either of you. Never really did."

Liam bites his lower lip, his fingers dancing against the tops of his thighs, and Louis can't tell where he's standing on the angry to frustrated scale, so he ignores him, turning his attention to pulling up his calendar. He doesn't look up when Liam sighs and slips out, making sure to pull the glass door shut behind him. Probably to give Louis space to nurse his hangover in private, unerringly sweet even when Louis's at his worst.

Louis takes advantage of the privacy for a bit, until his eyes glaze over the 126 still un-answered emails in his inbox and he gives up, grabbing his jacket and his coffee and heading out.

"I’m heading down to X-Factor. Forward any calls to my cell," he tells Juliana on his way out, before catching a cab and bowling into rehearsals.

Thankfully, Niall’s working on the main stage with his groups – Pharell doesn't take too fondly to Louis's input; or, more accurately, to the steady stream of Louis's input - so Louis settles himself in a chair and crosses his ankles on the judges' table.

"They’re good," Louis nods at the young group on stage.

"I know." Niall crosses his arms, squinting at the stage and making a hand motion towards the choreographer that Louis takes to mean ‘more lights,’ if the bright blues and reds flashing across the stage are any indication.

"Well, win or loose, send them to Liam and I, yeah?"

"Sure." Niall pulls himself onto the table next to Louis’s feet. "How you feeling?"

Louis narrows his eyes. "Zayn called?"

"Liam."

Louis groans. "I’m getting my shit together." _If you would all leave me in peace_ , he wants to add, but it would sound petulant and whiny and, anyway, he made his own bed, it's about time he lays in it, rumbled sheets and torn bedspread and all.

Niall pats his ankles. "I know. I have faith in you." And then he frowns, hopping off the desk and jogging over to fix some of the staging. He turns at the last minute to shoot Louis a grin and a loud, "Go back to work. You’re scarring my singers."

Louis sighs. He really does need better friends.

***

Louis still prefers foot long hot dogs to filet mignon, but Lottie’s always been a bit posher than he is, so he makes reservations at Chez Benoit for their monthly dinner. It’s a Thursday night, raining and breezy, and Louis’s hands are a little pink and numb by the time he makes it inside.

"You look awful," Lottie says, cheerfully, swirling her water around in her glass and smirking at him.

"Thank you." Louis shrugs out of his jacket, handing it and his dripping umbrella to the waiter hovering at his shoulder. The guy’s in black-tie, penguin tails and everything, and Louis feels a little bad as water drips down his trouser leg and pools on his shiny pointed shoes. "Good to know my family has my back."

Lottie scoffs. "Someone needs to knock you down a few pegs. It’s a hard job, but I’m up for it."

Louis rolls his eyes, but he does press a kiss to her cheek and one to Amy’s before he takes his seat and opens the wine menu. It’s long, like, five pages long, with a half-page whiskey section and Louis’s eyes hurt a little from just looking at it.

Across the table, Amy laughs a little and takes pity on him. "We already ordered a bottle or shiraz."

"Oh thank god." Louis grins at her; he knew there was a reason he likes Lottie’s taste in women more than he likes Lottie herself. "You’re my favorite," Louis adds, because it’s true. Of all the women Lottie’s dated, Louis completely understands why Amy’s the only one Lottie’s taken home to their mother.

Not that Jay appreciated Amy’s dragon neck tattoo, or the inch-wide gage in her ear, or her half-shaved head. But Louis appreciates these things. Like he appreciates the way Amy smiles at Lottie when she thinks no one’s looking, the way she tells Lottie off when she’s being stupid, and the way she hates these fancy steak places as much as Louis does, but goes anyway, just because Lottie likes them. She and Louis have a lot in common, except, of course, that Amy never complains about any of it, and Louis- well, complaining is sort of his modus operandi.

Amy pretends to preen under his attention, "well, thank you," and then flips him the bird when Lottie looks down at her menu.

"I’m thinking, maybe, the salmon? Or the T-bone?"

Amy wraps her arm around the back of Lottie’s chair, twisting her fingers into Lottie’ hair even as she makes faces at Louis. "Whichever you’re in the mood for, babe."

"The salmon," Lottie announces, slamming her menu shut and leaning her elbows on it. "Definitely the salmon."

"Sure you don’t want the duck? I hear it’s the time of year for it," Louis asks, feigning disinterest as he flips through his own menu.

"Really? Ugh." Lottie opens her menu, before stopping. "Duck season isn’t a thing, is it?"

Louis shrugs. "Could be. What do I know about things like this?"

"You’re the worst." Lottie frowns, but has to stop sticking her tongue out halfway through when the waiter arrives with their wine. Impeccable timing. Louis will have to give him an extra-appreciative tip. 

"So, how are things?" Louis asks, swirling his wine for appearances sake, before taking a large swig. It’s good, expensive tasting, like something Liam would order when his parents are visiting.

"Fine, fine, working on the new Bond film, whatever." Lottie waves him away. "What I really want to know is what’s up with you?"

Louis shrugs. "Nothing, really. Signed a few new acts. Oh, I went to Zayn’s class a few weeks ago. Would you imagine he’s actually a proper teacher?"

"No." Lottie raises her hand to her chest and Amy hides her giggles behind her hand. Louis appreciates the gesture. "I’m sure he doesn’t have to do much, just has to stand there, really, to pull their attention."

"Who can blame them?" Louis would have failed – worse than he did – if he had had a teacher as fit as Zayn. Would be really hard to focus on medieval art while sporting an awkward semi and all. "Harry was pretty taken by him, at least."

"Oh?" Lottie hides behind her wine as she takes a slow, calculated sip. "And how is Harry?"

"Fine. Apparently he’s been going to every one of Zayn’s courses."

"Hear he’s been at the X-Factor studios a lot, too."

"Hmm." Louis fidgets under the table, wiping his palm on his thigh. "Making up for lost time, I guess."

"You’ve been-" Lottie tilts her head, looking for the words, "absent since he got back."

"Not on purpose." Louis frowns. "Coincidence."

"Sure, sure." She finishes off her glass and Amy reaches for the bottle to refill all three of them. 

Louis looks from Amy to Lottie, then back to Amy. He should have known this was an ambush from the moment Lottie called him last week, begging for dinner with the warning that, if she didn’t check up on him, their mother would be down at the weekend to do it.

Lottie taps her fingers against the rim of her glass. "So, how’s Liam?"

"Fine," Louis says, slowly, and Lottie raises an eyebrow at him. He’d really been hoping that the whole rise and fall of him-and-Liam would go unnoticed and uncommented upon. By anyone. But, he’s always figured that he used his luck up the moment Simon said ‘we’re going to put you throw as a band,’ so he should have known that he wouldn't be lucky now. "How’d you know?"

Lottie looks at Amy and Amy shrugs. "I’m observant."

And, "huh," that’s interesting. He hadn’t realized that Liam and him were something to be observed. He’s kinda been assuming that they were still acting in their same, practiced rhythm, with just a little more dick-touching thrown in for good measure. 

"Yes, twat." Amy rolls her eyes, crossing her legs and leaning closer to Lottie. "Got her, didn’t I?"

"I didn’t mean- oh, never mind." Louis finishes off his glass and waves at their waiter for a second bottle. It’s a good thing he didn’t drive himself tonight.

"So?" Lottie pushes. "Things with him, they’re good?"

Louis’s halfway through forming a sassy reply, when Lottie’s mask drops and he catches the sincerity around the edges of her mouth. He changes course mid-thought. "They’re complicated."

"Complicated as in-?"

"Complicated," Louis repeats because, honestly, he can’t think of a better word for it. "Have been since August."

"Since Harry got back," Lottie translates, and Louis shrugs. "You know?" Lottie tilts her head, giving him a look eerily reminiscent of the one Zayn’s been giving him the last few days. "I don’t think things have to be as complicated as all that." 

That sounds like Zayn, too, but Louis still doesn’t know what it means.

***

Louis sees Harry first. He’s sitting at a table, head bent over his iPad, hair held back with a maroon and gold silk scarf that names him immediately. Louis thinks about leaving. It would be easy, turning on his heel and slipping back out the revolving glass doors. But, he’s absolutely desperate for caffeine, and he’s not actually ten years old anymore. 

Also, Harry catches sight of him in his moment of indecision and is waving him over, a bright grin in his cheeks.

"Fancy meeting you here," Louis tries for nonchalance and over shoots it by a mile.

"Not really," Harry admits. "I just had lunch with Liam and this café’s across the street from the office. He might have mentioned that you come here, sometimes."

Louis’s caught between flinching at Liam’s name and frowning at the implications of Harry’s sheepish declaration. "Are you my stalker now?"

"Maybe."

"Always knew you’d be right good at that stalker business. Sure had enough examples to follow."

Harry laughs from his belly, and Louis’s missed it enough to say, recklessly and through a chuckle of his own, "I’ve missed you."

Harry sobers, his face tightening. "I’ve missed you, too."

"Well, ahh," Louis turns his ankles, scuffing his shoes together under the table, "now that we have that settled, there’s only the matter of why you were putting those well-honed stalking skills to use?"

"I wanted to talk to you." Harry shrugs. "And since you weren’t returning my calls-"

Louis sighs. He had lasted two days of Harry’s texts and calls before he blocked Harry’s number on his personal phone and asked Juliana to forward Harry’s work calls to a bogus answering machine. "Well, I’m here now."

"Yeah. I- I know. And I know Liam’s already told you this, but he told me that you weren’t really listening and, I thought, maybe, from me? But, Lou, we haven’t- Liam and I, nothing’s happened."

Harry’s twisting his ring between his fingers, all earnest big eyes, and Louis just- doesn’t know what to think, because that’s Harry’s sincere pose, but, really? When Liam told him, weeks ago, that nothing was going on, Louis had assumed there was a big, bold _yet_ tacked onto the end. And it’s been just as many weeks, now, of Harry going home with Liam, taking care of Ellie, cooking and cleaning and being there, and they haven’t? They’re both so, so fit. And they’ve loved each other since they were sixteen.

Louis wouldn’t have lasted three days.

In fact, Louis didn’t last and he has this whole mess to prove it.

So, what he says is, "Why not?" when what he means is _thank god_ and _sorry I’m such a dick_.

Harry looks insulted, has every right to. Louis’s foot spends more time in his mouth than out of it these days and, unfortunately, Harry’s been baring the brunt of it. Harry lifts his hand, slow, reaching up to take the headscarf out of his hair and run his hands through it, like his scalp hurts. It probably does. "Lou-"

"Look, I’m sorry," Louis butts in, when it’s clear that Harry doesn’t know where to start. "I just, I know what you’re both like-"

Harry raises an eyebrow and Louis cringes. He’s terrible at talking. Maybe he should just end this conversation and write Harry a song or something. He’s always been better at expressing himself in song.

He’s not wrong, though, even if he’s kind of shit at saying it, so he pushes on. "Because I’m like that, too, and I wouldn’t last that long. Didn’t, actually."

"Yeah, well, maybe we have more restraint than you." Harry bites it out then, immediately, drops his head, rubbing the back of his neck and peering at Louis from under his eyelashes. "Sorry, that’s not true. You know, personally, how untrue that is. I don’t even know why I said it."

Louis laughs, not, like, full-bodied, but from high in his throat, because Harry is so, so Harry even when he’s under attack. "Yeah, I do."

"And it’s not like we haven’t come close, but, every time, I stop, or Liam stops and," Harry leans forward, dropping his voice, "truthfully? My balls are starting to ache from it."

That forces another snort from Louis. "I could give you a hand with that."

"And you know I’d take you up on it."

Harry looks ready to pounce, the muscles above his knees tense in mid-motion, his elbows pressing against the table. Louis’s sure that, with just one move from him, Harry would be up, out of his seat, out of this coffee shop, and renting a room at the Radisson next door without so much as a _hey, mate, this a good idea?_ So Louis doesn’t move. Doesn’t even move a finger.

Their waitress walks into their wall of tension an indeterminate amount of time later, plopping two lattes down on the table between them. "You two looked like you could use these," she says, with a wink, before turning on her heel and walking away.

Harry smiles, picking his up and tipping it to Louis’s, "Cheers," as if nothing had happened.

"When did you start drinking coffee?" It’s the first thing that comes to mind, mostly because it's so strange to watch Harry sip at his coffee like it's his lifeblood. It jars Louis fully out of that vision of a younger Harry that he walks around with, lodged into the corners of memories; the one he’s very aware needs to be dislodged before he can proceed with- well, with anything, really.

Harry shrugs. "In Ghana. Local custom, and I didn’t want to be rude."

Louis rolls his eyes.

"And then I was kinda hooked. Bad habit, but," Harry shrugs again. "There are worse."

"True that." Louis takes a sip, closing his eyes as the caffeine hits him and maybe he’s been walking around with a caffeine headache all morning. That would explain a lot of things. "So, um, why have you then? Stopped yourselves, I mean?"

Harry lowers his drink, very carefully, his gaze never leaving Louis’s, and Louis is pretty sure that Harry’s sizing up his mental stability or something. "It’s complicated, right?" Harry starts. "And it feels wrong, knowing that we’re- that Liam’s still hung up on you, and knowing what you and I did. It’s just- complicated," Harry repeats.

"Yeah," Louis breathes. Something in his chest is churning, trying to get his attention, but he can’t pull his focus away from the way Harry’s face is twisting as he fights with himself.

"There’s just- something missing." Then, quickly. "Not with Li. Li’s wonderful and fit and so good with Ellie and the company and I’m so proud of him."

"Right." Louis coughs, looking down, fingers playing with the handle of his mug. "I, um, I am, too. He’s done amazing."

Harry’s hand lands on his, and he looks up, into Harry’s earnest, green eyes, pleading with him to understand something, to read something in-between Harry’s words. "I’m proud of you, too. What you’ve done with One Mode. And your songwriting. You’re amazing, Lou. Just like I’ve always known you were."

Louis feels himself blush, and he wants to pull his hand from Harry’s; if he were a bigger man, he would. But, he’s weak and a little bit lonely, and he enjoys Harry’s touch too much. "Thanks, Haz. You’re pretty amazing yourself."

"Nah." Harry ducks his head. "I left the world for six years. But, I’m trying to make up for that now."

"It was something you needed to do," Louis insists, squeezing his fingers around Harry’s.

"Yeah, you’re probably right." Harry shrugs, looking up again, his eyes, if possible, even greener. "We miss you, Li and I. I don’t want to fight anymore. It feels like we’ve been fighting forever."

It feels like that to Louis, too. Not, like, active fighting. But, always there, in the back of his mind, a little reminder that he pushed Harry away, that the band was over, that, no matter what Louis does now - no matter how much money he makes or how many #1 hits he produces or how many bands he signs - he’ll never reach that peak he reached then, with all the boys at his side and the world screaming at their backs.

It’s a humbling feeling, on good days. It’s enough to keep him in bed, buried under his quilt with a cup of tea and an X-Factor marathon on days that aren’t so good.

"So, what do you say? Truce?"

Louis wants that. Can’t think of anything he wants more than that. So, he nods, loosening his fingers from around Harry’s so that he can hold out his hand. "Truce."

Harry grins, fitting his handshake around Louis’s, then using it to pull him forward, out of his chair and into an awkward one-armed hug across the table. "Li will be so pleased. You’ll talk to him, yeah? And Ellie. She’s missed you, too. She’ll be so happy if you start coming around again."

Louis thinks Harry is getting ahead of himself, as usual, but he nods anyway and doesn’t fight the warm, happy feeling spreading in his chest. "Yeah, yeah, definitely. I’ll call him this afternoon. Or, like, walk next door to his office and have a chat."

"Right." Harry grins, his cheeks flushed, and Louis wonders, insanely, if that happy feeling has spread all the way down Louis’s arm and into the hand he’s still holding. "Proper friends again."

***

Turns out, Harry was right and Louis was wrong. Liam barely lets Louis apologize before he’s up and out of his chair, circling the desk and pulling Louis into a two-armed bear hug.

"You’ll come over for dinner, yeah? Ellie’s missed you something terrible."

"I shouldn’t- Li, don’t you think we should take this, like, a little slower?"

Liam pulls up short. He drops his arms, and they hang at his side uselessly, fidgety and unsure, and Louis hates himself. "I mean, yeah, slow, sure, if that’s-?"

"Just-" Louis shrugs. They’re still standing close enough that Louis can feel Liam’s body heat seeping through their shirts. "You’ve been angry at me, and you’ve had every right. It’ll probably take some time to get over that."

Liam shrugs. "You’re been the one having a proper strut, Louis. I’ve been ready to forgive you for weeks."

"Really?" Louis frowns. Did he miss that?

"Sure." Liam crosses his arms, his hand brushing against Louis’s fist. "I mean, I was mad, like, proper mad. But, we’ve had rows before. What makes this one different?"

 _Everything_ , Louis wants to shout. Everything about this is different. This time, sex is involved. And Harry. And Ellie. And, besides, it’s been years and years since they’ve had a proper fight about anything that didn’t relate to work. It’s possible Louis’s forgotten how to have them. 

"Nothing, I guess." Maybe if he plays along long enough he’ll start remembering how to do this, how to be a part of this family again.

"Good." Liam claps him on the shoulder. "So, dinner? Harry’s making potpies. They sound magnificent."

Louis’s mouth waters just thinking about it. "Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there."

"Good. So, can we talk about work now? I want you to listen to this McCrouggers duo out of Dublin. Did you read that e-mail I sent?"

"Yeah, I think." Louis pulls it up on his phone as Liam crosses to the other side of his desk, again, and Louis settles into a chair. His chair, the soft one that's conformed to the contours of his ass and, Jesus, it feels good to sit here again. Normal, calm, without the anger of the last few weeks and without, even, the sexual tension of the last few months. Maybe things _can_ go back to the way they were. 

Eventually.

***

Louis has a terrible, embarrassing, near-banal habit of being late to meetings with Simon. To, he maintains, no fault of his own. This time, the cat got out and Louis had to chase her down the street, then the Tube was late and it dumped him off a station too early. Rather than wait for the next one, he trudged the extra few blocks in the pouring rain, his impractical dress shoes slipping along the pavement, his umbrella only really serving to drip water in a more organized pattern down his back.

He's a mess by the time he slides into the seat across from Simon, still struggling with his umbrella and dripping water from his hair into the cup of lukewarm tea Simon was waiting for him. "Sorry," Louis tries, then, "thanks," as he picks up the cup.

Simon laughs, waving their waitress over. "Can we get a top up, please? As you can see, he could use something warm and wholesome."

If Simon were one of the boys, Louis would stick out his tongue. But, he's not. He's still Uncle Simon - a particular scary, supportive, knows-every-one-of-his-secrets kind of uncle - and he can still make Louis feel like a little boy with a single patronizing smile or a pat of Louis’s hand.

The waitress returns with a steaming pot and an empty cup and Louis wants to kiss her. Almost, if he hasn't sworn off any sorts of kissing lately. "Thank you," he says, instead, as sincerely as he can manage with rainwater dripping down his nose. 

"We could have postponed," Simon says, words laced with laughter.

"Nah." Louis situates himself, pulling out his iPad and sliding his legs under the table. The cup of tea feels wonderful around his fingers. "This has been on the books for weeks. Nothing I can't handle like a little rain."

Simon raises an eyebrow, like he knows very well that the rain isn't Louis’s problem, but Louis doesn't have time to dwell on how Simon always - _has_ always - managed to know about everything Louis-related before it happens. He must have spies everywhere, like carrier pigeons. He knew about Lottie's coming out, knew about the numerous marriages and divorces, knew the moment Ellie was born. Only thing he never knew about was Harry's own sexual identity crisis; or, maybe he did, and that's something Louis tries very hard not to think about.

"Good to hear domestic life hasn't made you soft."

"How are Eric and Maddy?" Louis asks, pointedly.

Simon, though, doesn't even fall for it, just pulls out his phone and turns it towards Louis. "Halloween," Simon says and, well, that explains why Eric's dressed as a pirate and Maddy as a princess in a dress that, upon a second look, looks an awful lot like the Cinderella dress Ellie had initially wanted as her costume. 

"Cute," Louis says, not lying. He'll never understand how Simon's fathered two completely normal-looking kids.

"And smart as buttons," Simon grins, pulling his phone back and peering over his glasses. "How's Ellie?"

"She's, ahh-" fuck Simon, fuck him for knowing exactly what wounds to pick at. "She's great," Louis tries to grin, but isn't sure he makes it. He pulls up his own Halloween picture, with Ellie dressed in her unicorn costume, matching the one Harry had made for himself, delighter at her choice. Niall's wearing a drunk pirate outfit with a fake parrot on his shoulder, Zayn a punk rocker that looks suspiciously like his every day clothes, Liam in the same Batman suit he wears every single year, and Louis in the zombie footballer garb that he had thought was a lot more clever before Ellie started crying over it. 

It's Liam's fault really; Louis had had the whole thing planned out, their Batman and Joker couple's costume. It's not his fault Liam took it as a gag when Louis brought it up. Louis supposes it is his fault that he and Liam aren't actually a couple at the moment though.

"Cute," Simon deadpans. "Zombie footballer has Hollywood written all over it."

"Well, you know, I was gonna be an actor, if the whole singing thing didn't work out."

"Bloody good thing it did, then."

"Oi."

Simon holds up his palms. "Don't shoot the messenger."

Louis sighs, grumbling, "I'm not that bad."

"Hmm," Simon hums, pouring himself another cup of tea and topping Louis’s off. "So are we here to talk about the kids or are we gonna talk about the book?"

Louis rubs the back of his neck, eyes on his tea as he takes a slow, hot sip of it, the steam warming his nose. "It’s good."

"It is." Simon flips open his iPad and sets it on a stand in front of him. "So, what do we need to change?"

"Nothing."

"Start with the first page. I’ve already started an e-mail to Harry’s editor, so, I’ll just type in there."

"I’m-" Louis takes another sip of his tea. It warms his chest. "Simon, I’m good with it."

Simon looks- surprised. Louis’s been trying to get that look on his face for ages, and even in the middle of his own mini-freak out, he takes a moment to bask in his victory. "You’re okay publishing it? As is?"

"As is." Louis nods.

"Huh." Simon sits back, tapping his stylus against the table and surveying Louis.

Louis nods again, reaching for the teapot to refill his cup. "H already took out the worst parts."

"Not all of them. You don’t come off particularly well."

Louis shrugs. "Not particularly poorly, either." And he could have. He could have come off as the asshole who broke Harry’s heart without realizing it was happening, or as the twat who didn’t even notice that Harry was loosing himself, stealing himself to walk away, until it had already happened. Harry could have blamed him. He didn’t.

"Niall comes off a saint."

Louis can’t argue with that. "He is."

"Zayn a bit off a pothead."

Louis snorts. "That ship sailed years ago."

"Liam-" Simon shrugs, reaching forward to pull his cup into his lap. "I’m not sure how Liam comes off."

"He’s the one who wouldn’t let go, even when we all knew it was falling apart." Louis swallows. "Ignorant, naive, but, probably, the best of us all."

Simon regards him for a long moment, sipping his tea and peering over the rim at Louis until Louis is squirming and counting the time in the rain still dripping from the hem of his trousers into his socks. Until finally, finally, Simon uncrosses his ankle and leans forward. "Alright, printing as is. I’ll tell Haz and his publisher. You should probably release a statement, the day it’s released, putting your support behind it. The other boys, too."

"I’ll talk to our PR department."

Simon makes a note on his iPad, probably to talk to his own PR department or something, even though Louis is almost certain that Simon ignores everything his PR people tell him. "We still have to talk about the release schedule."

Louis pulls his own iPad into his lap, taking notes as they discuss the release of Harry and Niall’s single, the rest of the album, and the book. It feels strange, talking about Harry’s career without Harry there. Louis did it a million times when they were a band, but, it’s different now, when Harry’s going solo, or, solo plus duets. Whatever it is, Louis's only involved at the periphery, so-

"Alright, I think we’re good. Call me if anything comes up." Simon packs his things away and gets up, leaning across the table to shake Louis’s hand.

"Sounds good."

"And if you think of anything you want changed in the book, I won’t get to the publisher for a couple of days, so-"

Louis’s not going to change his mind. "I’m good, but, thanks."

Simon nods, and then there’s a honk from outside and he’s out the door and slipping into his car. Louis fights with his umbrella, before finally giving up and calling his own car, a luxury he doesn’t use that often anymore, not if he can help it.

He drops a few bills on the table and, on his way out, wads up the folded paper in his pocket and drops it in the wastebasket. The _Changes to H’s Memoir_ title is still visible, but Louis ignores it as he pushes open the door to stand under the awning as he waits. 

He wasn’t lying. The book isn’t perfect, far from it, but it’s the truth, and it’s Harry’s, and Louis’s done standing in the way of things that Harry wants.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. It's been a long journey, and thank you all so much for reading and commenting and leaving kudos - it honestly means the world to me!

The morning of the first November snow, Louis gets to the office early enough to see the flakes melt to rain in the early morning lamplight. He's been getting to the office early for weeks; the house feels quiet and cold and way too big with just him there. He's also pretty sure he has ghosts in the attic. Or bats, it's possible it's bats.

There was a time, just after Louis moved to London after the band ended, when Louis reveled in the silence. After years under foot of hundreds of thousands of people, solitude spelled safety and comfort and freedom. Now, those feelings have given way to loneliness, achingly familiar to the loneliness he had felt as part of a crowd.

Liam was supposed to change that. Liam _did_ change that, for a little bit. And it surprises Louis how much he misses things that aren't Liam's dick. Like the way he makes tea and the stacks of men’s magazines he was always piling on Louis’s bedside table without ever seeming to read any of them.

It’s possible that Louis just needs to get out of the house. To, like, a bar. With alcohol. He should call Niall.

He sends off a quick _horse head 2night. 7_ text, purposefully leaving off the question mark, followed immediately by _not a request_ , even though it’s five in the morning and Niall won’t be awake enough to protest for hours yet.

He puts his phone aside to wait, and turns to his inbox. If Louis doesn't particularly like being awake at this hour, he loves being at work long before dawn hits. It's peaceful, quiet, full of possibility, like it's borrowed time. 

It's midnight in NY, nine pm in LA, so he pulls up his e-mails from Japan, where it’s one in the afternoon and there's a slight chance that he can get some real work done.

Before he realizes it, he’s engrossed in a YouTube mix of videos sent to him by one of his Japanese scouts. They’re of a group called Boom Boom, "the next greatest thing" according to Akio, who Louis does tend to trust. Certainly more than Liam, at least, who loves everything out of Tokyo. Louis suspects it’s all the glitter and spandex and the flashy light shows. Liam did always harbor a thinly veiled secret desire to be in _that_ kind of boyband.

Louis typing out, "terrible name, band’s got potential," with one eye still on the video, when there’s a knock on his propped-open glass door. Louis jumps, dropping his iPhone to the floor and clutching his hand to his chest. "Fuck."

"Sumimasen." Harry holds up a hand. "Sorry." He looks a little rumpled, like he rolled out of bed and jumped on the Tube to the office before a shower, or caffeine, or clothes that have been washed and pressed anytime in the past few months. Louis, himself, has a 24-ounce cup of coffee at his elbow and is wearing an expensive silk black shirt over tailed trousers. Not his best outfit, admittedly, but it’s clean. And ironed.

"It’s five am."

Harry glances at the large digital clocks over the windows in Louis’s office, facing the desk so that Louis always knows what time it is at their main offices around the world. Harry frowns for a moment, as if all the different times confuse him before he finally gives up and shrugs, apparently willing to take Louis's word for it.

This tight-lipped, mysterious, confusing Harry is not one of the Harry’s Louis has missed. "What are you doing here?" Then, because, Harry doesn’t actually work here. Not yet, at least. "How did you even get in?"

"I’m not used to locked doors."

Which doesn’t actually answer Louis’s question.

Harry ignores him, moving over to stand behind Louis’s computer. "What are you watching?"

"Um, a four-piece out of Kyoto. Our Japanese office wants to sign them."

"They’re good." Harry tilts his head for a moment, closing his eyes and pumping his fist in time with the music. "The tenor needs a little work, though. He slips out of the pocket at the end of the third line of the chorus every time."

Louis clicks back, re-playing the video and, holy shit, Harry’s right. Louis’s been trying to figure out what was off for at least fifteen minutes and Harry just- in thirty seconds- Louis wonders, not for the first time, if Harry would take a job with them if they asked nicely. "Shit, of course. Good catch, mate. Thanks."

Harry shrugs again, his hair brushing against his shoulders as he does so. It’s turning grey, just a little, at his temples, and Louis has a hard time looking away. "No problem." He points behind him. "I’m just gonna get back."

Louis pauses in the e-mail he’s writing to Akio, telling him to hire Boom Boom a vocal coach and then record a new demo, to glance up at Harry, who’s already half-turned away. "Wait, you never answered me. What are you doing here?"

"Oh." Harry bites at his bottom lip and Louis gets lost for a moment, before he mentally shakes himself out of it. "My morning meditation."

"Shouldn’t you be dong that in, I don’t know, a park or a garden or something?"

"Just someplace peaceful and relaxing. I’ve always found music relaxing. In Japan, I would always struggle in the morning hours when it was so quiet, but, later, during Mrs. Kito's harp lessons, I'd just close my eyes and be right there." Harry shrugs. "Anyway, so, I haven't found harp lessons in London yet, but, the studio is the next best thing."

Harry says it like it's the highest praise for a place to be deemed good for meditation, and even though Louis can think of a lot better places than One Mode, he'll take it. Plus, Harry does look relaxed. So relaxed that his vest is sliding off his shoulder, baring his new green and red Ghanaian tattoos and Louis- well, music has always done the opposite for him. It thrums through his veins and makes him feel alive like nothing else ever has. 

Except, perhaps, for Harry, who’s always just compounded the feeling. To the point that Louis spent years lighting up before every show, needing the weed to dampen his energy levels when he felt so close to the edge already, and was terrified that one perfect harmony, one exact look from Harry, would topple him over.

He wonders if it would be inappropriate to smoke some now. Probably.

"Wanna come with?"

Louis shakes his head, pulling himself out of his thoughts to stare at Harry. "Where?"

"Walking."

"To-" Louis frowns, "mediate? Shouldn’t you, like, sit somewhere with flute music and chant or something?"

Harry ignores him, holding out his hand. "Come on."

Louis thinks about refusing, about turning back to Boom Boom and the glitter and, probably, calling Akio to make sure that he got Louis’s e-mails. That all sounds boring and very much like it can wait, though, when held up against Harry and his tattoos and the calm, measured way he’s just standing in the doorway, waiting for Louis, like he never stopped waiting for Louis.

"So, um, what am I supposed to be doing?" Louis asks, as he falls into step next to Harry, forcing himself to match Harry’s slow pace.

Harry raises his fingers to Louis's lip. "Shh."

Louis’s fingers twitch against Harry’s. "Okay, but, like, what should I be doing when I’m not talking?"

Harry’s quiet for so long that Louis thinks they’re just gonna do this. Walk around the empty office, with only the emergency lights and the rising sun to guide them, glancing around at the cubicles and posters and personal knickknacks that Louis doesn’t get to focus on very often. 

Louis has to admit that this, as stupid and obnoxious as it is, is at least making him feel closer to his employees. That can never be a bad thing. Almost never, at least.

"Hey, I, ahh, I think I’m getting this," Louis says, picking up a Darth Vader Mr. Potato Head from one of the desks and juggling it in his hands for a few moments before setting it back down.

"Not really, but-" Harry shrugs. "We’ll work on it."

***

It’s Zayn, of all people, who brings up the idea of a reunion song. 

Well, to be fair, it’s not Zayn’s idea. It’s the fans', the thousands of them who still – to Louis’s continual surprise – follow their every movement and have been tweeting a lot of things like "1D all in London!!!!!" and "reunion tour? reunion song? <3 eyes" over the past few months. Louis still has a Twitter alert set up for One Direction mentions, directed to an e-mail account he rarely checks anymore, but it’s been steadily filling up since those pictures of Harry at Heathrow surfaced last August.

Louis’s sitting on the steps of the University of London library, eating curry out of a styrofoam take away container, when Zayn pulls up Twitter on his iPhone and hands it to Louis.

"I was thinking, maybe, this wouldn’t be the worst idea?"

Louis scrolls through Zayn’s Twitter feed; it looks just like his own. "No need to sound too confident about it."

Zayn shrugs. "Been a long time since I’ve been on stage."

"Yeah." Louis, too. He doesn’t know if he misses it. Sometimes, maybe, when the pressure of being behind the scenes – namely, writing and producing and managing without any of the fan adoration or formal recognition - gets to him. Those sometimes aren't all that frequent, though.

"But, maybe, for charity?" Zayn shrugs. "I went to dinner with Haz last night and he was talking about the kids he lived with, in Ghana, and I still- I remember-"

Louis knows. Of all their videos, the ones from Ghana are the ones he rewatches, the ones he still tweets out to his followers every so often. And he knows that Zayn still has nightmares, once or twice a year, when he wakes up crying and cancels the rest of his day to volunteer at soup kitchens and youth homeless shelters.

Louis also knows that there’s a reason Harry chose Ghana six years ago, when he was hurting and desperate to be a part of something larger than himself. Harry traded hotels and fancy cars for a shelter in Ghana, his One Direction family for a different kind of family. Harry – who has only ever wanted to be himself and to be accepted for it - had to go all the way to Ghana in some masochistic need to punish himself for the lies he never wanted to live.

"Lou?" Zayn asks, poking Louis’s shoulder with his fork.

"Ew, curry," Louis complains, dropping his own fork and brushing Zayn away. "Let me talk to Liam."

"Niall and Harry’ll be up for it."

"Yeah."

Zayn starts packing away his things and gets to his feet. "I’ve gotta run, class in twenty." He presses a hand gently against Louis’s shoulder. "Might be nice, eh? To sing a bit again."

Louis turns his head to press a kiss to the top of Zayn’s hand. "At least someplace that isn’t the shower."

Zayn laughs. "My shower loves me." 

"See, that’s what you think, but-"

Zayn pinches his fingers into the pressure points at Louis’s collarbone, before he turns and takes the steps two at a time. Louis doesn’t remember why they’re friends.

He does, however, remember how much he used to love performing. Not at the end, when he was exhausted, a few years past burned out; but, in the beginning, and the middle, when he lived for his hour-and-a-half on stage every other night. He’s been rehearsing again, with Harry, just a few times and just ‘Jungle Fever.’ This is different, though; this is all of them, all five, harmonizing on stage like they used to so, so long ago that Louis barely remembers what it was like.

Which is how he finds himself in the main conference room at One Mode a week later, passing around containers of kung pao and chow mein. They’ve locked the doors, turned off their phones, and taped a "Band Meeting" sign on the front of the door. Zayn’s even drawn an old-school "1D" logo in the corner. Louis’s pretty sure he’s gonna steal it, maybe post it on his office door or, more likely, above his living room TV set. That is, if Liam doesn’t nick it first. Sentimental fool.

"So, 'Teenage Kicks,'" Liam starts with, because they’re all in agreement on that. Teenage Kicks was their original Comic Relief single, and it’s only right to resurrect it. It’s the second song, though - the one Children in Need begged out of them when Louis and Liam had called with the reunion single idea – that's they're not so much in agreement on. "And-?"

"'What Makes You Beautiful'?" Niall suggests, his accent heavy on ‘beautiful’ and Louis has to smile even though he still turns the radio off every time it comes on.

Liam writes it on his iPad, projected on the screen at the front of the room, and they stare at it for a long moment. Even the words annoy Louis, and he feels a bit bad about that; that song was good to them.

"'Halley’s Comet,'" Zayn shrugs, but it’s not, really, any better of a suggestion. Their sixth album was beautiful, probably the best writing, musically, that they ever did. But it’s also sad and haunting, traces of their ending running through every minor chord and lyrical choice, and this-

"This is a charity single," Louis reminds them. Zayn shrugs, and Liam writes it on the list, anyway, even through his frown.

Liam pauses, then types in "Story of My Life" and Louis tilts his head. They’re getting closer.

Harry leans forward, his elbows on the table and his hat tipped back on his head. "I’ve always been partial to 'Little Things.'"

"I like that," Niall pipes up. "That’s the best so far."

Zayn nods and Liam circles it. It’s not a bad choice. "Little Things" has always been very special to each of them. It was the first song they sang slow and acoustic, their vocals pushed in five separate solos, strung through with harmonies and mature lyrics, and the beginnings of a more mature fan base. It’s still one of Louis’s favorites, and one of the few from their first two albums that he can look back upon fondly.

Still, though, there’s something niggling at the back of Louis’s mind. It’s the producer part of him, the sixth-sense that has earned him multitudes of hit records and the most successful young company in the business. "Li, will you pull up a list of all our tracks?"

"Can’t remember them?" Niall asks, smirking at him. "Don’t blame you. It’s harder for old people to remember things."

Louis reaches out to hit the back of Niall’s head. "Oh, and you can?"

"Ah huh." Niall nods, then starts in on _Up All Night_. He gets to "I Wish" before Zayn puts his hand over Niall’s mouth.

Louis laughs, and turns back to the screen. Liam is Googling "One Direction Songs," bless him. He pulls up the list, then catches Louis’s eye. "What are you thinking, Tommo?"

"Not sure yet." Louis leans forward to read, running through opening chords and choruses in his head, until, and he can't believe he's forgotten it, "'Fireproof.'"

Liam grins at him. They’ve never really made it a secret how important "Fireproof" is to both of them, and it was certainly a beloved fan song, but it was never a single and it’s never been sung on live TV before. For Louis, it always held so much promise, perched at the edge of something important, musically and personally, that never actually materialized. But now, just maybe, it can mark the beginning of something else, equally as big and equally as important.

"Yeah," Zayn agrees, nodding.

Niall shrugs. "I’m cool with it." Although Louis has the feeling that Niall would agree to any suggestion. Except, maybe, "Gotta Be You."

Harry’s looking at him, smile soft and private. "You know I’ve always loved 'Fireproof.'"

"Alright." Liam pulls up a new document on his iPad. "'Fireproof' it is. Now, rehearsal schedule?"

Zayn starts bickering with Niall about fitting his teaching schedule around Niall’s X-Factor schedule, and Louis feels Harry’s hand find his knee under the table. He allows himself, just for a moment, just for the briefest of interludes, to sink into it. 

***

Rehearsals are as chaotic and unruly as Louis remembers them being. More so, because they don’t have tour managers and choreographers and vocal coaches reigning them in. Unless Louis and Liam can be counted, but it's proving a lot harder to produce from the band than it was from the sidelines.

He still doesn't get why no one protested when he had asked, in a moment of misplaced ego, "What’s the use in hiring a producer now that Liam and I do this for a living?"

Louis doesn’t even believe the shit that comes out of his mouth, he has no idea why the rest of them do.

They’re on their fifth run through of "Teenage Kicks." Harry’s forgotten the opening line twice; Niall’s come in early at least that many times; and they all fall out of the pocket during the "na na na" bridge. Their harmonies are off, too, as they struggle to adjust to their more mature voices, and, finally, Liam waves his hands to stop it.

"We need to rearrange this," he says, shaking the sheet music in his hand. "This worked when we were eighteen, but, we’re quite a bit older now."

"Thank you for stating the obvious, Liam."

"No one else was," Liam grumbles, glaring at Louis as he hands over a pen. Louis sighs, allowing himself to get roped into helping as Zayn announces, with no pretense, that he’s going for a smoke, and drags Niall with him. Louis’s lungs ache to follow, but Liam’s hand is warm and steady on his elbow and, well, it’s been a long time since Liam’s touched him.

So, he leans into Liam’s side, reading over his shoulder and nodding along as Liam drops the chorus an octave. Liam’s body is warm and steady, sending sparks of memory up Louis’s spine, the way Liam’s skin feels, tanned and shined in sweat, when they’re pressed together in Louis’s disgustingly expensive sheets. He can feel himself hardening in his trousers, not at all helped by the way Harry’s cradling his guitar, sitting across from them, bottom lip clenched between his teeth and a deep frown line cutting his forehead asymmetrically.

Harry hits a particularly beautiful chord and Liam’s head snaps up, knocking against Louis’s. Louis grouses, and Liam reaches back to pat his hip, without ever looking away from Harry. "Play that again."

"What?" Harry glances up. He looks shy, uneasy, like they might shoot down his ideas, as if he isn’t the one of them in the midst of writing his own solo album. "I was just, like, playing around with the melody."

"No shit." Liam rolls his eyes. "Play it again."

Harry glances down at the frets, and circles back to the beginning of the chorus. Louis can’t look away as Harry’s blunt fingers pick out a slower, more laidback, easy going melody that is much better suited for their mature tones. Also, for a charity single. Liam’s fingers tighten on Louis’s hip, the way they used to when Liam was excited about an act, and Louis pushes into it, feeling surrounded by Liam’s body and Harry’s music and, fuck, he needs to get out of here.

He jumps up, rubbing his hands on his thighs. He’s sweating and still a little hard as he swallows the haze of his throat. "I, ahh, need a coffee."

"Um." Liam catches himself from tipping over in the absence of Louis’s body, and frowns up at him. "We were working on something."

"It’s okay," Harry shrugs. He’s also looking at Louis, but there’s something in his eyes, dark and curious and hopeful. "I’ll remember the melody."

"Keep working," Louis urges them. "I’ll bring some back."

Harry puts his guitar to the side and stretches his long legs. "We could use a walk, too, right, Li?"

"Ahh." They have a silent conversation that Louis can’t understand, but it involves a lot of eyebrows and hand gestures and it hurts a bit to watch. Finally, though, Liam gets up, too, and wraps his elbow around Louis’s. "Caffeine is great for the creative processes. Let’s go."

"You’re acting weird," Louis tells them, as they step outside, pushing their hands into their pockets and raising their collars against the mid-November cold, even for the few seconds it takes to cross the street to the coffee shop.

"Hazza’s always weird." Liam pats Harry’s arm when they get inside, and Harry just shrugs in acceptance, as he reaches for their hands and rubs them all together for warmth as they step into line.

And if it's been a long time since Louis's touched Liam, it's been ages – years, really – since they've all touched like this, without thought of memory or consequence. There was a time when touch was easy and expected, second only to music as their main means of communication. It's a language Louis had thought he'd forgotten, but the way his body responds, warming and goose bumping and his fingers curling, automatically, around both Harry's and Liam's, suggests otherwise.

"I watched something interesting the other day," Harry starts, when the line appears to be going nowhere quickly. "A history thing, about Australia. Did you know that in many Australian aboriginal cultures, group marriages are not only accepted, but preferred?"

"What, like, polygamists? Like that Sister Wives show Liam loves so much?" Louis asks, digging his fingers further into Liam's palm.

Liam shrugs. "I think it’s interesting, to see how they make it work. It's wickedly hard, yeah?"

Louis smirks. "You just like the idea of having four wives at your beck and call."

"Do not," Liam protests. Harry slits his eyes and Liam drops his voice. "I don’t, really."

"Wait, you’re, like, serious? This thing you watched-"

"It was a documentary on the Discovery Channel." Harry drops their hands to twist his turquoise ring around his index finger. "And it wasn’t, like, multiple wives or anything. It was just groups of people who all-" He spreads his fingers, then links them. "They shared a hut and household chores and had kids. Like a real marriage, just with, like, more people."

Harry seems really serious about this and Louis wants to reach over to stop him from fidgeting. "Huh. Like, men and women?"

"Different mixes. Depending."

"On what?" Louis asks, despite himself.

Harry shrugs. "Culture. And sexual proclivities."

"Huh."

"’s not so weird," Harry protests. "Happened in Ancient Hawaiian cultures, too. And some think Dutch law recognizes group civil unions."

"Maybe we should think about moving to the Netherlands." Liam’s ears burn pink and Louis spins his head to stare at him.

"What can I get you?" The barista asks, but Louis doesn’t look away from Liam as Harry orders five coffee, made to their exact specifications.

"Liam?" Louis finally prompts, trying to keep his voice light, because they’re talking about some stupid TV show Harry watched last week when he couldn’t sleep or something. Not, like, because it’s important.

Looking at Liam, though, with his hands pushed into his front pockets and his shoulders pinched inwards, it feels important. 

"Just think it’s nice."

Louis doesn’t know if he means the Netherlands, like, with the trees and castles and the orange and stuff. Or, the idea of liberal, open societies, in general. Or, if he likes the particulars of group marriages. Whatever that means.

Louis's stomach swoops forcefully, and he wants to ask for clarification, wants to know more about what Liam's thinking. 

But Harry’s shoving coffee into his hand and talking about the melodic changes for Teenage Kicks, and, Louis supposes his window has closed.

***

Gemma goes into labor at 12:12p on a snowy Tuesday in mid-November. Harry’s pretty convinced it’s a good sign, the whole snake-eyes thing. That's all he can talk about when he calls Louis from the car to skip out of rehearsals and beg him to come down to the hospital.

Against his better judgment, Louis goes. After he gets three separate –

"It's nearing finals, I've student meetings all day and classes this afternoon, maybe, after, I can take over? I'll text,"

"X-Factor rehearsals, Lou. It's almost the Final, I just can't get out of them,"

"You've seen my calendar today. It's mad. If I take the calls with Dubai and Boom Boom, though, you look kinda light? I'll be by after I pick up Ellie this afternoon, promise."

\- responses from the boys, handing Harry's well being to Louis's as if the last thirteen years never happened and this wasn't going to be the most awkward day in Louis's history. Louis suspects collusion.

He goes, though, cause he can't leave Harry alone. Harry sounds frantic on the phone, like he's already trying to pace from the cab, and Louis's pretty sure that Harry is going to handle this a lot less gracefully then Gemma will.

So, he sets up shop in the private room the hospital offers, and waits out Anne's arrival rather impatiently. He's on the phone when she bundles in, cheeks flushed and baring coffee and snacks, straight off the train from Cheshire. He hangs up without preamble, clutching her forearm and pressing a kiss to her cheek as he accepts the coffee. 

"I'm glad you're here," he says, with more than a little relief clinging to his words.

She smiles, her eyes sparkling. "Harry’s glad you’re here."

Louis shrugs. "Not sure I’m being much help." He motions to the papers spread out in front of him, contracts marked with post-it notes and earmarked pages.

"Just being here is enough." She winks, before settling into her seat, crossing her legs, and opening the first of her stack of magazines. "Don’t let me stop your work."

She looks eminently calmer than Louis feels, and he doesn’t really get it, but he gets back to work, anyway. It’s a busy day at the office, and he spends more time than he’d like on the phone with Tokyo and LA, pacing in front of the window and counting the seconds between Gemma’s contractions as her screams filter through the hallway from her room. 

Liam brings Ellie by the hospital round about hour five, when Gemma’s settled into her epidural but Harry’s pulling his hair out. He’s taken up mirroring Louis’s pacing, eyes red from rubbing them, a deep, dark bruise developing on the inside of his index finger, where’s he’s been biting his nerves into his skin.

"Everything okay?" Liam asks, taking the seat next to Louis and tapping Louis’s knee with his fist. Ellie settles between Liam’s legs, hanging off his thigh and swinging her sneakers against the linoleum. 

"Gemma’s doing great. Anne’s in with her." Louis smiles, tapping Liam’s shoulder and pointing to the hallway between their private waiting room and Gemma’s room. They can just see Harry’s head, his fingers threaded through his hair, pacing across the waiting room window. "Harry, not so much. They kicked him out of the room about twenty minutes ago."

Liam nods, caressing Ellie’s back between her shoulder blades. "I’m gonna go- Will you watch her?"

Louis nods, pulling Ellie into his lap, pressing his lips to her head as she snuffles against his chest. He watches as Liam heads into the hallway, his arm steady around Harry’s bicep, clasped over Harry’s Ghanaian tattoos. Harry gives a small smile as he leans into Liam’s touch, mirroring the slow, deep breathing styles that Liam must still remember from Lamaze training.

Louis can’t tap down the little thrill of jealousy, even though he knows it’s ridiculous. Liam’s been here before. He’s done this, spent hours in a room just like this one, squeezing Sophia’s hand and waiting, even more impatiently than Louis thought he would, for Ellie to join them.

Louis doesn't go through those memories often. He likes to forget that there times before Ellie. Times when Liam belonged to someone else, when he wasn’t Louis’s, and he wasn’t Harry’s.

"Uncle Lou?"

"Hmm?" Louis looks down and helps Ellie brush a strand of sleepy hair off her forehead.

"You squeezed really tight."

"Oh." Louis loosens his hold on her, but doesn’t stop rubbing her back. He hadn’t realized- Jesus, he really needs to get himself under control. It’s been months of this, and he’s pretty sure everyone else is as tired of it as he is. "Didn’t mean to, bug."

She shrugs. "’s okay."

She’s asleep when Liam comes back, cheeks flushed and eyes crinkling at the corners. "Won’t be long now. I’m gonna take her to Sophia’s, but I’ll be back soon."

Louis nods, shifting Ellie into Liam’s arms. He feels cold and alone, without them, in this room, surrounded by work and nothing else. It feels, sadly, like some sort of metaphor he isn’t quite ready to grasp, even as he sweeps up the piles of papers and shoves them back into his backpack.

He’s resorted to playing a throwback game of Snakes on his iPhone when Harry falls into the pink plastic chair next to him. He looks exhausted, his long legs spread awkwardly past the boundaries of the chair, his right hand red from where Gemma was squeezing it, his eyes rimmed in dark circles and happy crinkly lines. "I’m an uncle," he says, quiet and awed.

"You are." Louis grins. "Best uncle around."

Harry runs his bruised hand over his face. "I really hope so."

He looks so nervous and unsure, and Louis reaches out to take his hand because, really, of all people, Harry should not be worrying about being a crap uncle. "That little boy’s gonna be so, so lucky. His life is going to be so full of love and laughter and support."

"And bananas," Harry adds, all fake-serious, and Louis chuckles.

"Right. How could I have forgotten?"

"No idea." Harry squeezes his hand, sobering. "I’m really glad you were here, Lou. Would have felt wrong, if you weren’t."

"Me too," Louis whispers.

"I, um," Harry drops his hand. "There’s been something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. But, the timing’s been off and I didn’t know how to bring it up, but, I want to, and I’m an uncle, and it seems like time for confessions, yeah?"

"Um." Louis smiles, just a little. "Never a better time, I'd say."

"I’ve-" Harry swallows. "I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen." It’s simple, stated like it’s a fact they’ve both known for longer than they can remember. Which, Louis supposes, it is.

"But," Harry continues, dropping his eyes to his hands. His nails are rough and short, where he must have been picking at them during Gemma’s labor. "I love Liam, too. It's wasn't so- instant, overpowering, but I don't love him any less."

Louis’s mouth is dry and sticky, his tongue stuck around words he doesn’t know how to say, doesn’t, really, know if he wants to say. It’s not like this is a shock. Not completely. There have been hints, looks and statements and all the things Louis’s been feeling and burying under a lifetime of preconceived notions about love and commitment and what they’re supposed to look like.

To have Harry say it, though- Louis’s not sure how he’s supposed to feel about that. He’d like it to mean- but, Harry loves everyone. Always has. He’s also in love with love, with commitment and family and what a life would be like if he was a little less lonely, and Louis doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if Harry’s playing him, no matter how unintentionally.

"Louis, please, say something?"

Louis rests his elbow on the edge of his chair, placing his chin in it and turning his head so he can look at Harry properly. "I watched the documentary. The one on the Discovery Channel, about the Australian aboriginals."

"You did?" Harry’s smile brightens. "Liam said I was being too subtle."

"Helped that Lottie and Zayn had already laid hints."

Harry raises a surprised eyebrow and that at least proves that they hadn’t been involved in the ill conception of this whole scheme. "Really?"

"They were much subtler than you." Louis’s free hand twitches, itching to catch Harry’s again. He places it under his thigh instead.

"Hard not to be." Harry brushes his hair off his shoulder, fidgeting with the edges of his headscarf. He doesn’t look away.

"It was eye opening. The documentary." Louis tugs at the edges of his own hair. It’s getting limp and soft, after hours in the stale, tepid hospital air. "I didn’t realize that was an option. Like, for anyone."

"Worked for the Kurnandaburi." Louis frowns and Harry smiles at him. "The Australians."

"Right."

"And?" Harry urges. "Now that you know it’s an option?"

"I don’t know," Louis admits.

"That’s okay," Harry says quickly, adamantly. "We can wait as long as you need."

_We_. That pulls Louis up. Hard.

Because, if Liam’s already a part of this- Liam processes things slowly, meticulously, with pro and con lists and reading materials. He's not likely to have agreed . . . he wouldn't have opened his home to Harry, wouldn't be talking with Harry about the logistics of getting Louis into their bed, with an inordinate amount of thought. Most importantly, he wouldn't have agreed to any of this if he had any doubts, even the faintest sliver, about Harry's intentions. Not with Ellie and Louis caught in the cross hairs.

And Louis gets it, finally, why Harry's been allowed in with Ellie. Why he's been allowed to read her bedtime stories and make her breakfast and sleep over, to act her dad, when Louis has been held steadily in the funny-uncle-who-makes-faces-and-buys-her-extravagant-presents role. 

Liam's been wary of Louis, unsure of where Louis will fall on all this. Liam has been wary of Louis for a long time, which means- Louis doesn't really want to think about just how long Liam and Harry have been talking about this. Not yet.

It just still seems so crazy that this is an option. That, maybe, he doesn’t have to choose between Harry, who he’s loved for so long that Louis wouldn’t recognize himself without him, and Liam, who has become so ingrained in Louis’s life over the past decade that Louis can’t tell anymore where he ends and Liam begins.

It seems like all of Louis’s dreams clicking into place.

And it seems impossible. But that's Harry. Coming up with an impossible solution and making it viable, so that everyone is happy. So that Harry, himself, is happy. Because Harry never sees a reason to hold back, to limit himself, because he is so full of love, and all he’s ever wanted to do is share it. And maybe, perhaps, if he’s lucky, be loved in return.

And finally, _finally_ Louis is starting to feel ready.

"I need some time," Louis says, finally, and then, because Harry’s looking tired and hopeful and all too lovely, he adds, "but, I love you, have forever, and have loved Liam almost as long."

"Louis, don’t-" Harry swallows, looking vulnerable for the first time since he’s come back. He looks sixteen again, with a beanie pulled low over his curls, trying, desperately, not to cry about being kicked off X-Factor. "Don’t take the piss out of this."

Louis tries to wipe the smile from the corners of his eyes. "I’m not. Haz, I wouldn’t."

"Because this is important. Like, rest of our lives important."

Louis’s chest aches and it takes most of what he has not to kiss him. "I know."

"Okay." Harry takes a deep, shuddering breath, then slaps his hands on his thighs and makes a concentrated effort to move on. "Wanna see my nephew?"

"More than anything," Louis agrees.

***

Louis is nervous.

Like, proper, dancing-leprechauns-in-his-stomach nervous. 

Children in Need is kind of a big deal. Millions of people watch it across the BBC platforms, urged on by charity and the prospect of a One Direction reunion. They probably should have started with something smaller. Maybe a karaoke night at that place down the street from Zayn's flat. Or maybe Liam's living room with, like, Ellie and Gemma and baby Oliver as an audience or something. Just, something smaller, less possibly-hostile.

"You’d think we’ve never done this before," Louis says, finally, when it’s either say something or let the nerves bubble over in some other, much-less-benign, manner.

"I might be sick," Niall admits, as Liam reaches over to right the bowtie around Niall’s neck.

"You do this every week, mate," Liam reasons, his fingers lingering on Niall’s neck and Louis’s hand twitches at his side, wanting nothing more than to reach over and take Liam’s hand.

It's not like he's really ever left the music life, not since those first six months when he hid in Maui from anything resembling pop music. He'd missed it, even in that short time, missed feeling alive in that way he only ever feels on stage. He'd thought he couldn’t ever feel it again.

But then he'd come home. To London and Yorkshire tea and a short train ride from his mum and siblings. He'd come home to Liam, to their shell company and the idea that maybe, just maybe, it could be something more. A real, artist-centered record label, the kind Louis had read about in books but that One Direction never, really – despite Simon’s real love and affection for them – had. And he came alive again in writing and producing all the behind-the-scenes work he was, it turns out, destined for.

So it’s strange, now, to sit through hair and make-up, to feel the in-ears cut into his cartilage, and to feel the microphone, wrapped in blue electrical tape, in his hand. He’s not quite forgotten what this feels like, but it’s different, stronger, his senses brighter than he remembers. He can hear the screams of fans, hundred of feet away, pounding against his senses. And he can feel every dip and fold of his clothes sticking to his body, the microphone almost too heavy to hold.

And that would all almost be bearable – almost – if it weren't for everything else simmering below the surface.

A decision he has to make. With Liam and Harry dancing to Beyoncé's latest single, both of them shirtless, both of them ridiculous and uncoordinated, both of them waiting. For Louis.

And not just them, but also Niall and Zayn, who have been hovering around them, watching this all unfold with something akin to amusement and endeared frustration. Louis’s pretty sure that, if he doesn’t make a decision tonight, one way or the other, Niall’s gonna lock them in a closet or some other means of seduction he’s learned from _Friends_. 

Truthfully, Louis doesn’t know what’s holding him back. If it’s the part of him that still sees Harry as an infatuated sixteen-year-old, gazing up at Louis with an adoration that Louis cannot possibly live up to. Or if it’s the part of him that hoped that the thing he had with Liam, whatever it was, was something comfortable, something he could settle into, grow old with. Or maybe it’s the part of Louis that never got over losing One Direction; that never, in fact, got over being put in the band in the first place, that part of him that is still that little boy from Doncaster who was shit at school and okay at singing and brilliant at entertaining people. 

If Louis does this, if he agrees to this crazy, insane idea that Harry has, Louis has to let those parts of him go. Because if he does this, he knows that’s it. It’s not something he can fuck up. He can’t wake up one day, decide he’s done with two of his best mates, his business partner, the band he’s just starting to get back, and the little girl who, despite never asking for any of this, is at the center of it.

Louis’s lost all that once, and he’s not about to do it again.

Louis futzes with the in-ear hanging around his neck and harry looks up, his smile softening and loosening as he catches Louis looking back. He must see something, something of a decision Louis’s not quite sure he’s made, because then Harry’s elbowing Liam and they’re both smiling at him, all crinkles and slick-backed hair and stuffy stage clothes.

Louis’s stomach twists, warm and terrified and everything he’s ever wanted.

So, he accepts his microphone. He lets Kerry the wardrobe consultant spray water on his hair and force it into something resembling a quiff. He listens to Simon’s impromptu pep talk, thirteen years too late and so predictable Louis could have written it in his sleep.

He certainly does not stare at the way Liam presses his palm against the small of Harry’s back or the way Harry leans into, resting his elbow on Liam’s shoulder and pressing a barely-there kiss behind Liam’s ear. He definitely does not think about what it would be like to settle himself between them, shoulders pressed to Liam's chest and Harry's lips on his neck.

He forces himself to think about the stage and the hundreds of fans outside and the millions more behind TV sets and computer screens.

Being thirty-one and maybe, probably, most likely, in love with two of his best mates is hard.

***

Fireproof has always been a special song for Louis. He remembers the day he wrote it, sprawled across the floor in a studio in London, ankles crossed over Liam’s lap and futzing around on a mini-keyboard. And he’s always loved his verse, always felt that it was so, so fitting for his life philosophy. _Roll and Roll 'til I change my luck_. Even if it takes thirty-one and more than a few wrong turns and false starts.

When he had written the verse, it felt hopeful; when he sings it this time, it feels like prophesy. 

He looks across the stage as he sings it, drawn to Liam and Harry without thought. And he couldn’t have known what he was writing about, not then - couldn’t, even, haven known why he chose the song in that meeting a month ago – but it’s so clear now that his subconscious was being drawn, magnetically and unerringly, to this very moment.

It took a long time but, in the end, there aren't any decisions for Louis to make. Not really. Not when it comes to Liam and Harry. This is just the culmination of a decision he made thirteen years ago, when he was eighteen and standing on the X-Factor stage and made a split-second decision to gamble on these boys.

The show doesn’t go off exactly without a hitch. Louis’s kind of distracted, and he’s a little more breathy on his solos than he would have liked. But, that’s okay, because they all mess up a bit. Niall forgets the new chords to the second verse of "Teenage Kicks" and it throws Liam sharp for a line or so. They’re all a bit flustered, overcome by nerves and the excitement of just being on stage again, and Louis doesn't want it to end.

Louis calls it a win. Or, he would, if he could think past the anticipation curling in his toes.

He feels shy as they file off stage. Harry takes the time to individually thank each person on the crew, shaking hands and kissing cheeks and flashing his dimples, all proper politician. Liam, though, presses his hand to Louis’s back, sweaty and insistent, and steers him into the further of the two trailers. 

He doesn't say anything. Just hands over the make-up remover and a washcloth and starts on his own face. It's almost comfortable. Or would be, if Louis had ever been the comfortable-silence type and not the talk-'til-it's-not-awkward lad his teachers used to call him out for at school. It's a trait that's served him well, really, with clients and record labels and, usually, with Liam.

Louis’s not sure why it's failing him now. Although he suspects it has something to do with how consequential this moment feels.

He gets halfway through taking off his face when he realizes how stupid this is. He's digging into the corners of his eyes, dirtying the washcloth with mascara and eye shadow, leaning forward to see better. Really, though, he's watching Liam through the mirror as Liam bends over to dig through his bag, shirtless, all endless panes of skin and muscle disappearing into the waistband of his boxers.

"You're the fucking love of my life."

Liam freezes, turning to catch Louis’s eyes in the mirror, wide and dark and flecked through with the most perfect shade of brown. He's clutching an undershirt and a plaid red flannel in his hand.

Louis shrugs at him. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to figure that out."

Liam looks uncertain, his eyes flicking to the door as if Harry might enter at any minute and lead them through the landmine of this conversation. It this is going to work, though, all three of them, together, then Liam and Louis need to be able to do this. They can't let Harry lead them through every hard moment, not least of why because Harry would hate having that kind of power over them. And Louis knows that his relationships with each of them, individually, are just as important as the partnership they're going to build together.

Liam shakes his head, his lips turning up at the corners even if his smile isn't quite reaching his eyes. "It's okay."

Louis drops the washcloth to the sink and turns, leaning against the counter and letting it take his weight. "It's not, really. But, if it makes you feel better, I didn't know I was playing with you."

"I was playing with you too."

"You weren't." And, as Louis says it, he knows it's true. Fuck. When did he forget who Liam is? Thoughtful and deliberate in everything that matters, Liam must have thought this through, from every angle and outcome and possibility, long before he fell into Louis’s bed. He probably made his decision months - maybe years - ago, and has just been waiting for Louis to reach the same conclusions, happy with whatever bits and scraps Louis was giving him. Louis's never felt worse about himself.

"Well, no, I wasn't." Liam admits. "But, I was, before, remember? Last winter?"

"I thought-" Louis frowns. Because he does remember. Of course he does. Liam had pulled away, spent more time drinking with Niall and sleeping nights on Zayn's couch, avoiding Louis out of, and snapping at him in, the office. But, he had thought- "I thought you were finally mourning Sophia."

"Soph and I were over long before we were over-over."

"Yeah, but, you were married, for a long time. It's okay to mourn that a little."

"Oh, I did." Liam laughs a little. "Had to, if we were gonna try this, yeah?"

"How'd-?" Louis's not sure how to ask. Not sure what, exactly, he even wants to ask.

"Harry called. Last fall." Liam shrugs, taking a step forward, but still clutching that plaid shirt rather then touching Louis. "Told me about the book, asked if we were ready for him to come back. I didn't think we were."

"We- he can do whatever he wants." Louis crosses his arms across his chest. He's not Harry's keeper, doesn't like the implication that he has been. Doesn't like the thought that maybe Harry was ready to fix things after Japan, but went to LA instead because Louis wasn't ready yet. Fuck. 

"If he was going to come back, he didn't want to half-ass it. He knew what he wanted, always has, and he was going to be all in. You weren't ready for that. I know I wasn't." Liam pushes, softly. "I asked him for more time."

"And crawled into my bed without him?" Louis snaps, a defensive mechanism against all the new perspective Liam's throwing at him. And it hurts, that Harry hadn't called him, that he trusted Liam but not him. It's not unsuspected, and it's not unreasonable, but it's picking at a wound Louis’s just started to scab over.

"I shouldn't have done that." Liam's face falls. "When I started thinking about it, though, I couldn't stop. And I thought, maybe?, I could push you a little?"

"Was working," Louis admits.

"Yeah." Liam smiles, for real, if still a little guiltily. "I thought it was. If I had just had a little more time," he shakes his head ruefully. "But then Gemma got pregnant and Harry came back earlier than planned and-" Liam makes a sweeping gesture that Louis takes to encapsulate everything that's happened since August.

"I feel duped," Louis says, and he's not sure, honestly, if he's joking.

"Sorry about that." Liam doesn't look sorry at all, and Louis narrows his eyes until Liam laughs, real and open, the corners of his eyes crinkling with it. "Got us here, didn't it?"

"Wherever here is," Louis grumbles.

Liam steps forward, crowding Louis against the sink. It's hard and a little off, until Louis hitches his hip on the counter and tilts his head, muscle memory pulling their bodies together. His hands scramble at Liam's bare skin, his knee pressing between Liam's thighs to steady them both, and Liam groans, dropping his shirts to the counter and pulling at Louis’s hips with both hands.

Louis slips his fingers under Liam's waistband, pulling him close enough to feel how hard Liam is, rubbing insistent and fast against Louis’s trousers. Louis thrusts his knee, in that hard, quick rhythm that he knows sends Liam immediately to the edge, grinning around Liam's whimpers. It's been a while, for both of them if Harry was telling the truth about he and Liam remaining platonic, and Louis’s pretty sure that he could get Liam to come right here, in the parking lot at Children in Need. 

Until the door opens and Liam tries to pull away even as his hips thrust against Louis’s leg. "Fuck, Haz," he breathes, not letting Louis go as he turns his head to see Harry in the doorway.

Harry pouts, tugging at his bottom lip with his fingers, a little bit of nerves that he doesn't let show in any other way. "I leave for five minutes," he drawls, "and you get started without me." He takes a step forward, hovering next to them, standing on his ankles and ridiculously unsure of himself. "This is- this is starting something, yeah?"

Louis reaches down to grab at the bulge in Liam's trousers, teasing and light. "Hopefully just the start."

"Louis," Harry whines, desperate and on the edge of something so important, and Louis reaches out to tug at the edge of Harry's open shirt, dropping his voice to Harry’s ear.

"I'm all in," he whispers.

"Yeah?"

Louis nods. "Yeah." And then Harry's surging forward, mouth warm and achingly sweet on Louis’s and it feels young and brilliant, kissing Harry and touching Liam, grounded and full of possibility, and, yeah, Louis’s in now. All in, for as long as they’ll have him. "Yeah," he repeats, when Harry pulls back to press their foreheads together and Liam presses their hips together.

Louis would be all for staying right here, locking the door and learning how their bodies move together, but Liam has other ideas. Ideas that include clothing and moving and a lot less touching than Louis appreciates. At least until Liam tumbles them into a cab and Louis finds himself in the middle, his hand squeezing Liam’s knee and Harry’s chest pressed against his side, body heat seeping through their clothes.

Harry’s humming in his ear, a little bit of "Fireproof" under his breath, ghosting across Louis’s neck and settling under his skin like the tattoo Louis always planned to let Harry ink on his body, but never did. Permanent and theirs and always there, under Louis’s fingertips, where Harry and Liam and everyone in the world could see. On his wrist, Louis had always thought, or his inner elbow, or maybe behind his ear. He’s always liked ear tattoos, but was never brave enough to get one.

There are a lot of things Louis hasn’t been brave enough to do over the years.

He feels brave enough now, though. Brave enough to do anything, with Harry and Liam here, with him, promising him trust and safety and a home, all the things that Louis’s wanted but never quite believed he could have. He wants to return that, somehow, show them how grateful he is that they’ve waited, patient and quiet and without a word of urgency, when Louis, himself, has spent three months in a right strop.

So he reaches over, pulling Harry to him, slotting their mouths together despite the awkward angle. Harry sighs into it, shifting his knees so that he can put one hand on Louis’s leg and the other on Liam’s, twisting his fingers with Louis’s and pressing them both tightly into Liam’s thigh. Liam groans, small and unconsciously, shifting into their hands so that Louis can feel how hard he still is, pressing against Louis’s pinky.

The noise brings Harry back to himself and he pulls back, just far enough to press his forehead to Louis’s, breath choppy against Louis’s mouth. "Lou- we’re- the windows."

Louis shakes his head, against the possibility of paps and fan cameras and the chance that the cab driver might sell their story to the Mirror for a million quid, because he just, well, "I’m all in," he repeats, hoping Harry will get it, hoping it’s enough.

Harry groans and Liam presses closer to Louis’s side, his lips tentative and gentle on Louis’s neck, just under his hairline. Louis feels trapped and loved and he never wants this to end. Which, of course, is when they pull up to Liam’s townhouse, and Liam lifts his hips, dislodging their hands as he reaches for his wallet. He hands over his card, murmuring a number that Louis is sure is meant as a preemptive measure against them actually ending up on the front page of the Mirror.

"I’d at least like to tell Ellie myself first," Liam murmurs, when Louis drops his hand to Liam’s waist, pinching a reminder into Liam’s skin. 

It's a confirmation, as Louis steps out into the chill of the November night, that this is what Liam’s been waiting for. Not that Liam was ashamed of Louis, or worried that he might fuck off and leave Ellie in the lurch, but that Liam’s been hoping that they’d get to this point, and was waiting for Louis to catch up before bringing Ellie into it.

And that confirmation does more to convince Louis about the reality of this than anything else.

"Liam," Harry whines, draping himself across Louis’s back, pulling him to settle against the hollow of Harry’s hips as Liam fumbles with his key, hands visibly shaking with the cold and his nerves and probably more than a bit of lingering arousal.

"Sorry, sorry." Liam throws them a wry smile over his shoulder. "Just a little on edge."

Definitely arousal then. Louis reaches out, brushing his hand up Liam’s thigh and across the bulge in his jeans before settling his fingers around Liam’s and steadying his hand. Liam smiles gratefully as the door clicks open and they tumble inside. 

The door closes heavily behind them and Liam leans back against it, breathing heavily, cheeks flushed and coat hanging open. He looks beautiful and broken and Louis’s believing that ‘on edge’ comment more and more. 

It's never occurred to him that Liam and Harry have been as off-set as he has been the last few months, desperate and wanting and so, so confused that he couldn’t tell what way was up half the time. Maybe, just maybe, Liam and Harry have been teetering on the same ledge, just a little apart from him, a few, cavernous feet that Louis could have bridged just by reaching out and brushing his fingertips with theirs. Well, he's ready to reach out now, at least.

He wraps his hands in the lapels of Liam’s coat, falling into him and reaching up to kiss him. "I’ve missed you," he admits, because he has months to make up for. 

Liam tilts his head, deepening the kiss, picking up where the last one left off, all heat and need and their legs slotting together. Except, this time, Harry’s there, pressed behind Louis, his chest burning through the cotton of Louis’s shirt and his hands big and tight around Liam’s hips.

It feels, for a moment, just like every other time Louis has kissed Liam in this entryway, all knees and teeth and familiar, comforting touches. And then Liam pulls away, tipping his head to kiss Harry over Louis’s shoulder, and all sense of familiarity gives way to new and reckless, burrowing under Louis’s skin, hot and insistent. Captivating. 

He presses forward, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to Liam’s jaw as it moves against Harry. It’s intoxicating and excessive, an addiction Louis never wants to break. Not when Harry pulls away, wrapping his fingers in the hair at the back of Louis neck, adjusting their angle so that he can pull Louis into his mouth, still wet and swollen with Liam's kisses. Not when Liam’s hands slip under Louis’s shirt, relearning the contours of Louis’s chest, and not when Liam tugs him back into a kiss as Harry pulls at the collar of Louis’s shirt and mouth at the skin of his neck.

They kiss until Louis’s jaw aches and his lips are raw from the stubble around Liam’s mouth and the mustache Harry still isn’t great at growing. And Louis knows he’s whimpering, soft with relief as something tight and anxious eases in his chest. He’d be embarrassed, except Harry isn’t much better, an endless stream of moans and gentle noises slipping from his mouth, and Liam’s body is speaking in trembles and quiet, tender touches across Louis’s skin.

Harry's moans are accompanied by the rub of his body against Louis’s back, hard and insistent against the swell of Louis’s ass and Louis pulls back, long enough to work at the ache in his jaw as Liam takes the opportunity to open the last button on Harry’s shirt. Louis turns, presses his back into Liam’s chest and reaching out to touch Harry’s. Harry is breathing quickly, the laurel tattoos on his stomach rippling with the effort, arching into Louis’s hands as he skims his fingers down Harry’s stomach, following the small trail of hair ‘til it disappears below Harry’s waistband. Harry’s hard, straining against his tight, dark trousers as Louis rubs the thick line of him.

Harry shudders, shifting away and shaking his head. "I’m gonna- if you-" He runs a hand franticly through his hair. "Fuck, I’m so close already."

Louis chuckles watery, as if he isn’t a misplaced touch or thrust from coming himself, and pulls his hand back to adjust himself, just a little pressure where he’s already swollen and aching against the zipper of his trousers. 

Behind him, Liam groans, dropping his lips to Louis’s neck and kissing it twice, punctuated by two quick thrusts of his hips into Louis’s back. "Upstairs?" He asks, and his voice sounds just as wrecked, and just as close, as Harry’s does. 

Harry’s voice shakes around his, "please," and they’re in Liam’s house, so Louis lets him lead. It’s a nice opportunity, Louis figures, to watch the sway of Liam’s hips, and when they make it to the bedroom, Louis stops him with a gentle hand at his waist, slipping three fingers down the back of his pants.

Liam’s skin is slightly damp, and he doesn’t argue as Louis helps him shrug out of his jacket and shirt. Louis squints into the darkness, using his hands to remind himself what Liam looks like, until Harry flips on the light and joins them next to the bed, his eyes smirking even as he smiles gently.

"Want to see you this time," he admits, softly, as he tugs at the hem of Louis’s shirt.

Louis swallows, remembering the last time he touched Harry, pressed against a piano in the basement of One Mode, barely better than coming in his pants. He’d like to see Harry, too. For real this time. "Me too."

Harry grins, already out of his shirt and trousers, and Louis kicks his shoes off and is struggling with the button on his own trousers when Liam bats his hand away. "Always so useless when you’re like this," he mutters, slipping to his knees, fingers skimming down Louis’s sides and hooking into his waistband. Louis bites his lip against the groan at the image, though he’s pretty sure the way his dick twitches in his pants gives him away.

It’s so much, just having Liam on his knee and looking up at him like this is all he’s ever meant to do, and then Liam’s leaning forward to press a kiss to the damp spot on the cotton straining over Louis's dick. His breath is hot and moist through the cotton and Louis keens, urgent and a little broken when Liam leans back on his heels, grinning up at Louis through his eyelashes.

Louis’s throat is already shot, but he manages to slip "twat" through the cracks in his breath. He’s pretty sure the effort's lost, though, on the moan he can’t help as Liam slips his hands into Louis’s pants and pulls them down. 

The air is cool against his skin, but it isn’t much reprieve as Harry steps up behind him. He’s already completely stripped, his dick hard and leaking as it fits snuggling between Louis’s thighs, thrusting in a slow, tantalizing, wet rhythm that he mirrors with his fist around Louis’s cock.

"So pretty," Harry murmurs, resting his chin on Louis’s shoulder and burying his free hand in Liam’s hair. Louis is burning everywhere they’re touching him, his skin tight and dry and aching under Liam’s lips on his thigh and Harry’s fist around his dick and Liam’s fingers around his balls and the pressure of Harry’s knee behind his. It’s the sweetest form of claustrophobia, and Louis’s teetering on the edge so fast his head is spinning.

"Hey, hey," Louis tugs on Liam’s shoulders, pulling him up and twisting them until Liam’s knees hit the mattress. Liam’s still half-dressed, straining against his trousers, and Louis makes quick work of his belt and zipper. He slips his index fingers into Liam’s pants, pulling them down and off as he pushes Liam onto the bed, counter-momentum that has him naked almost as quickly as Louis would like.

Louis grins, joining him on the bed, and pauses.

"Lou?" Liam raises onto his elbows, squinting at Louis. From his other side, Harry rubs at Louis’s bicep, and Louis makes a concerted effort to loosen the tension in his muscles.

He swallows, his throat dry and scratchy. "These are new."

Liam follows Louis’s gaze, before smiling, soft and sweet. "Yeah, they are."

Louis reaches out to touch the two new tattoos, small and dark and still a little sore, in the hollow of Liam’s hip, placed just below the waistband of his boxers. Louis can’t breath as he traces the thick, unbroken lines of the first tattoo, all angles and negative space, symbolizing safety and protection and Liam in Ghanaian symbols. Next to it is the angular crocodile, Harry’s symbol inked onto Liam’s hip. Louis’s skin aches for the permanency of it, the physical connection between Harry and Liam.

"They’re beautiful," he whispers and Liam’s hand tugs at the back of his head.

When he looks up, Liam’s smiling at him, small and shy and with his eyes. Liam shakes his hand out of Louis’s hair, dropping his fingers to his own hip to draw concentric ovals in the empty space next to Harry’s tattoo. "Yours will go here, if you’ll let me."

Looking at it again, they’re clearly spaced and sized for three tattoos, symmetric and evenly placed in the hollow of Liam’s skin. Louis traces the empty space with his finger, before he shimmies up Liam’s body to kiss him. "Please."

"We’ll make an appointment tomorrow." Liam nods, like it’s settled, like it’s just that easy for Louis to fit into their lives and onto their skin and, Louis supposes it is. 

Easy as all that.

He smirks against Liam’s mouth. "What else have you changed since I’ve last seen you starkers?"

Liam raises an eyebrow. "Been a long time, Tommo. Why don’t you find out?"

It’s a challenge, the way it always has been with them, and Louis suddenly can’t wait to get his hands on Liam again, to measure out the small changes in his body with his fingers. He glances over, though, to where Harry’s already spread out, watching them with dark, green eyes, palming his dick slowly. 

Harry’s knees are spread a little, long and endless, and Louis leans over Liam to kiss the slow, drugged feeling off of Harry’s face. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." Harry slips down the bed so he’s spread along Liam’s side, turning Liam’s head to kiss him, his hand on Liam’s chest, tentative and slow and learning. Liam groans, his eyes slipped closed, mouth slack and amazed around breathy, affected noises.

If Louis had any doubts about their chastity over the last few months, they’re dashed immediately. Each touch is too unpracticed, each breath a little shaky and hesitant, and Louis leaves them to it. 

He shifts, kissing his way down Liam’s chest, trailing his fingers over the new muscle definition and the new wrinkle at the crease of Liam’s thighs. He stops at the tattoos, licking across the ink, Liam’s skin still pink and raw and fresh, and Louis marvels at how they feel different. Louis knows he can’t possibly taste the ink, but he feels like it sticks to the tip of his tongue, beautiful and fragile and forever. He’s careful with them, but when he gets to the open space next to them, he bites a bruise where his symbol should be, worrying at it until there’s a deep, obvious mark of his own to join Liam’s and Harry’s.

His blood is ringing in his ears and he doesn’t notice the silence until he pulls away to survey his work. But when Liam twists a hand into his hair, he looks up to see Liam watching him with hooded eyes and Harry resting his head on Liam’s shoulder, eyes trained on Louis even as his fingers twist at Liam’s nipples.

Louis opens his mouth to apologize, but Liam’s pulling at his elbows until Louis’s spread out across him, holding his weight with his arms on either side of Liam’s head and groaning as their dicks rub. Liam wraps his hands around Louis’s neck and kisses him, hard and frantic and Louis’s whole body aches with it.

He’s been on edge since the entryway, and, as he feels Liam’s body laid out beneath him, need rolls down his spine to curl in his toes and the backs of his knees and the insides of his thighs as they tighten around the outsides of Liam’s. He can’t really control the rhythm of his hips, and Liam tries to meet him, but it’s distracted and uneven, heavy with arousal, until Harry takes pity on them, wrapping his wide palm around them both. He slows them down, stilling them with slow, gentle kisses on their shoulders as his fingers slide Liam’s foreskin back and slip through the precome at Louis’s tip.

"Harry," Liam whines, bucking his hips, until Harry relents, tightening his fist and pressing kisses to Louis’s shoulder.

It’s different than the last time he and Harry did this. Different, even, then the last time he did this with Liam. Louis has always felt furious and intense with them both, with the urgency that comes with a string of possible last times. He doesn’t have to worry about that this time, though. They will wake up tomorrow and do this again, and the next day, and for as many nights and mornings and afternoons as Louis has left. 

It’s a freeing realization, shaking through his body and pooling in his balls, tightening and, "fuck, I’m gonna- oh, fuck."

Harry works him through it, dropping Liam and narrowing his attention to easing Louis down. Louis feels warm and hazy with it, worn out and shaking as Harry’s knuckles rub against his softening dick, until he’s sore and sensitive and pulls away, falling to Liam’s side and pressing slow molasses kisses to Liam’s shoulder.

He’s not sure how long he lies there, getting his breath and his body back under his control. But when he blinks himself back into their bedroom, Harry’s hitched his thigh over Liam’s. His fist is tight around Liam again, a harsh, fast rhythm that he’s matching with rough, staccato thrusts of his hips into Liam’s side.

Liam’s eyes are closed, his head thrown back and his back permanently bowed off the mattress, his knees shaking with the desire to curl himself around the pleasure in his body. Louis manages to work himself onto one elbow to steady himself as he reaches over to soothe the inside of Liam’s knee.

Liam jerks into Louis’s touch, his breath breaking into a series of moans, and Louis loves Liam, loves him when he’s wearing a suit and yelling at clients; loves him when he has Ellie hitched on his hip, laughing at her stories; loves him when he’s leaning into his mic, adding his falsetto to a song Louis thought had been perfect without it; but Louis loves Liam most like this, spread out between him and Harry, shaking apart and trusting them to put him back together.

Louis wants to tell him, needs him to know how important he is. So he pinches at the inside of thigh to get his attention, before moving his hand up, slipping his fingers into the warm, wet space between his thighs. Liam whimpers, arching his hips and spreading his thighs further apart, opening up enough room for Louis to slip his middle finger to the rim of Liam’s ass.

"Fuck, please, more, just- please," Liam begs, pushing his knee into Louis’s stomach and Louis lets his finger slip forward. It’s covered in Liam’s precome and a bit of his own, but it’s still pretty dry and Louis doesn’t let his finger go further then the first knuckle, just a little pressure inside Liam, a promise of all the things they can do later. 

Later, when Liam isn't curling over at the first touch of Louis's finger, a deep guttural groan punched from his body as he comes across Harry’s fist and his own stomach. Louis work him through it, a slight, continued pressure, until Liam lets out a sad, defeated sigh and Louis slips his finger from Liam’s body, kissing him to fill the slight ache of emptiness.

"God, Lou, Li, you’re-" Harry shakes his head against Liam’s shoulder, his hips still working against Liam’s side, humping down hard enough to leave a bruise. His lips are pressed to Liam’s shoulder, leaving a deep, red mark, and Liam’s going to be bearing the reminder for days. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, his dick still twitching as it softens against his thigh, and he twists, dropping his palm to give Harry something steadier to thrust against.

Louis reaches across Liam to twist their fingers together around Harry’s dick and Harry struggles to keep his eyes on them, only lasting a few more moments before he’s coming between them. Louis lets him come down, the air filling with long breaths and the slide of skin, sated and slow, until Harry lifts his head, flashing Louis a smile as he struggles off the bed in search of a washcloth.

Louis watches him go, shameless, as he blindly traces the symbols on Liam’s hip. Liam’s still a little groggy, but he wraps his hand around Louis’s and pulls him close. Their kiss is lazy and wet and uncoordinated, and Liam pulls back eventually, pressing their foreheads together. "I can make you an appointment, when I make mine."

Louis nods. "I’d like that." He traces his side, over the slight swell of his hip, where he thinks the three symbols would look pretty good stacked vertically over the side of his ribs.

Liam wraps his hand around the spot. "That’d be nice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry agrees from Liam’s other side, as he finishes cleaning them up and pulls the blankets over them all. 

"Yeah," Louis settles. That would be nice.

***

Louis hears the door open, distantly, not bothered enough to do anything about. 

When Ellie yells "daddy," though, and the sound of little feet pound up the stairs, he feels the bed shift and he cracks his eyes open to watch Harry leap off the bed, slipping into a pair of discarded briefs that pull taught across his ass - Louis’s then - and joggers that are a little short and loose around his thighs - Liam's. He glances back, winking at Louis when he catches him watching, before slipping out the door.

"Ellie, baby, shh, your daddy's sleeping, so what do you say to a cup of tea?" Harry's voice rumbles up the stairs, deep and scratchy, and Louis’s dick twitches against Liam's thigh at just the sound of it.

"Yeah, yeah," Ellie says, happy and ringing off the walls, before she must remember Harry's words and lowers her voice. "Sorry. Daddy okay?"

"Yes, love. Daddy's good. Great, I hope." There's just the hint of vulnerability in Harry's voice and Louis chokes, vowing to secure him the first minute he has the chance.

The sound of Harry's feet hit the bottom of the stairs, and Louis’s eyes open, for real, when he hears Sophia, careful and calculated. "Harry. I should have known."

"Hi, Soph. Long time, yeah?"

"Six years."

"Right."

Next to him, Liam groans into Louis’s shoulder. "Fuck."

"If we have the hope of ever doing this again," Louis starts with a laugh, scratching his fingernails through Liam’s short hair, massaging his scalp, "you should probably rescue him."

Liam grunts, rolling over to dig through his drawers and pull out another pair of joggers. They sit low on his hips, low enough that Louis can see the tattoos and the deep, purpling bruise Louis made next to them. Louis has to swallow, leaning over the bed to distract himself and fish for Harry's discarded t-shirt to throw in Liam's direction. Liam pulls it on, turning for approval.

"Looks good," Louis says, meaning _you look presentable_ but also _come back to bed quickly_ because it pulls across his biceps and hangs loose over his hips, the collar pulled and gaping over the lyrics Liam tattooed on his collarbone years ago.

Liam grins as he disappears out the door and Louis sighs, closing his eyes into the pillows for a moment, replaying the last few hours, making sure that each of his senses remembers every moment in surround sound and ultraviolet HD.

Eventually, though, the bed starts to cool and he forces himself up and out, pulling on his clothes and heading downstairs. The boys are in the kitchen, Harry futzing with the kettle and Liam leaning against the counter, asking Ellie about her day. 

Louis makes extra sure that Sophia's gone, before stepping into the room, ruffling Ellie's hair and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Morning, love."

"Morning." She grins, kicking her feet against her stool, and Louis loves her with all his heart.

Liam catches his eyes, all warm and bright, and Louis grins, rounding the table to press against Harry's bare back, holding his hips loosely and pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

"Mmm." Harry presses back, turning his head for a real kiss that Louis grants him without reservation. "Tea or coffee?"

"Tea please."

"Daddy?" Ellie asks, and Louis turns, leaning against the stove next to Harry's hip and pulling a face at Ellie. She laughs.

"Yeah, baby?"

"Do I have three daddies now?"

Harry lets out a loud laugh, his back shaking with it and his hair falling across his shoulders. Louis shakes his head, a grin on his own face as Liam looks at them both, eyes wide and terrified, and Louis’s not gonna have that. Not anymore. 

"I suppose you do," Louis answers, for all three of them. "That okay with you?"

She frowns at him, biting at the end of her braid, that same deep line between her eyes that Liam gets when he's thinking hard. Liam reaches over, pulling her hair out of her mouth and she looks at him, scandalized.

Liam frowns. "It doesn't mean that I love you any less. Or your mum." Louis snorts and Harry elbows him. Liam ignores them both. "I just love Uncle Harry and Uncle Louis, too."

Her eyes go wide. "You have that much love?"

Liam nods, reaching out to pull her hand to press against his chest. "Hear that?" She nods. "It's big enough for all of you, yeah?"

Ellie nods, finally, smiling her bright, happy, satisfied smile. "Mine, too."

"Good, ahh, that's good." Liam leans forward for a kiss, a quick peck, and then she pulls back, clearly accepting and moving on as only kids can.

"Can we eat now?"

Harry laughs, moving away from Louis’s side to push a cup of tea across the table to her. "Careful, it's hot."

"Yes, Daddy Harry."

Harry preens, brushing his hair off his shoulder and grinning wide and easy. "Just for that, what do you say to chocolate chip pancakes? A special treat for a special occasion."

She glances at Liam quickly, but then she nods enthusiastically. Harry nods, his hand slipping under Liam's t-shirt to run over his back for a long moment, before he turns to the cupboards to pull out pancake ingredients.

Louis is so overwhelmed, suddenly, and he's grateful when Liam straightens, moving over to pour cups of coffee for himself and Harry. He curls both his hands around his mug, blowing over the surface as he bumps his hip against Louis’s.

"Okay?"

Louis thinks about it. He couldn't have imagined this when he was 18. Couldn't even have imagined this five months ago, when Harry wandered back into their lives, as fully and confusing and all consuming as his parting was six years before that. Louis's never quite been able to imagine all that he really wants, though.

Louis brushes his hand against Liam's, smiling, wide and full and content. "Yeah, Li, I'm brilliant."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please comment here or come find me on [tumblr](http://speakingwosound.tumblr.com/). I love chatting about these boys!


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